LatAm miners: Legalized theft update (Plexmar and Alamos Gold)

The chart from yesterday's post is now doubly true

I actually got a couple of pretty cool hatemails for this note yesterday (though one was rather over-fixated on all things anal) in which your fed-up-with-Canadian-scamsters Otto pointed out how Plexmar (PLE.v) management was treating its own shareholders by insider selling on the same day it announced (seemingly) positive news. As part of the note I also wrote, "You can't help but wonder how many more insiders are left to file their trades, eh M. Bedard?"

Well wonder of wonders, we didn't have long to wait. Sure enough, head honcho Bedard filed his latest insider trades today. And sure enough, Bedard sold hundreds of thousands of shares on January 16th, too.

Jan 26/09	Jan 16/09	Bédard, Guy	Indirect Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-50,000	$0.085
Jan 26/09	Jan 16/09	Bédard, Guy	Indirect Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-45,000	$0.086
Jan 26/09	Jan 16/09	Bédard, Guy	Indirect Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-350,000	$0.096

Four hundred and forty-five thousand, to be exact. Now how on earth did I guess that was going to happen..............?

Now for part two, Alamos Gold (AGI.to)

John McCluskey: You know you can trust him
because he's smiling at you

And here's another company for the rogues' gallery of scam-laden management. Check out Alamos Gold's (AGI.to) Prez&CEO John McCluskey's inside sales in January.

Jan 26/09	Jan 23/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-4,900	$8.510
Jan 26/09	Jan 22/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-100	$8.540
Jan 26/09	Jan 20/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-2,500	$8.600
Jan 26/09	Jan 19/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-2,500	$8.450
Jan 26/09	Jan 16/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-5,000	$8.300
Jan 26/09	Jan 15/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-4,900	$8.112
Jan 26/09	Jan 15/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-100	$8.102
Jan 26/09	Jan 09/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-8,600	$7.923
Jan 26/09	Jan 08/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-1,400	$7.850
Jan 26/09	Jan 06/09	McCluskey, John	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-5,000	$7.438

That little lot adds up to 35,000 shares and a gross cash total of $283,554....and eighty cents. And amazingly, astoundingly, coincidentally enough, all these sales came just before AGI.to announced a bought deal placement for 9.4m share at $8 that intends to raise $75m for working cap for its Mexico operations.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1/26/09: Alamos Gold Inc. (the "Company")(TSX:AGI) has announced today that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters led by BMO Capital Markets under which the underwriters have agreed to buy on bought deal basis by way of a short form prospectus, 9,400,000 Common Shares (the "Common Shares") at a price of $8.00 per Common Share for gross proceeds of $75,200,000. The Company has granted the underwriters an option, for a period of 30 days following the closing of the offering, to purchase up to an additional 15% of the Offering to cover over-allotments, if any. The net proceeds of the offering will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. The offering is expected to close on or about February 17, 2009 and is subject to yada yada continues here

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So let's see how that news has affected AGI.to's stock price today:

Oh Mr. McCluskey! What lucky timing you have with your sales! So mark AGI.to down as another bunch that will screw shareholders without a moment's thought. By their deeds shall ye know them.

From a reader's mail to Bill Cara to a good idea worth support

Cara has better taste in neckwear than Agapov

Reader 'RS' mailed me yesterday to say nice things about the blog (appreciated) and to say that he'd linked one of my posts to the "Bill Cara Community" message board. So I clicked his link and went over to look (apparently I'm slightly cynical...shurely shome mishtake ossifer:-) but while there I saw the following post from Bill Cara. I think this is a great idea. Mis dos centavos after the paste-up:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

AUTHOR BILL CARA, LINKED HERE (timestamp 09:21am): I would like to ask your help. Two years ago, I embarked on a project that I thought was very much needed and very successful until the lawyers at UBS, ML and MS told me (politely mind you) that I must stop uploading to the Internet their published reports. That was only fair because I was receiving pdf's from over 20 broker-dealers, often minutes after being released to their staff, and the google and yahoo webcrawlers snapped them up from me and posted them for the world to read -- most often before the staff or clients of those firms could do the same. That wasn't fair, so after the first complaint -- the global head of legal matters for UBS came in -- I agreed to stop. But I still told these lawyers that their own staffs were foremost in the letters I was receiving asking me to get for them research from their peer broker-dealer firms, and those reports were not being sold by them for cash and were being freely shared by all Wall Street firms.

Now I'm ready to start the process again, but I'm not going to make these reports available on the Internet. I am only going to do it on a personal request basis and only to those who commit not to re-publish them on the web. This community is an investment club, not unlike any other in that we have accounts with all these broker-dealers and we have the right to obtain their research for discussion amongst ourselves. If the lawyers for the aforementioned firms disagree then please submit your response; but I will not be so forthcoming this time. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. They cannot permit other investment clubs to flourish and then stop mine.

So, if you are somebody who has access and can spend the time to retrieve and send the Wall Street/Bay Street research to me, even if it is just about a few companies or industries, please contact me in confidence.

I have set up a partitioned server to host these reports that will prohibit unauthorized access. I will need several sources for each broker-dealer because there is a lot of available research, some of it very good. So, please do what you feel you can. In return for participating in the Cara Community, the reward in the information you will continue to receive will be substantial. I intend to do all I can to level the playing field.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Otto sez:

1) Bill Cara has a motto of "Capital Markets and Social Equity", which is basically where this humble corner of cyberspace comes from, too. We all have our own agenda, of course, but it's pretty clear that Bill Cara knows oodles about his profession, cares a lot about the smaller retail investor and wants to level the playing field for the lil guy. He seems like a very good dude and a straight shooter, all told.

2) His initiative mentioned above is a manifestation of that. I often reflect on the quality of analysis available to the pro community as it compares to the meagre scraps offered up to the small shareholder. I've even quietly linked to a couple of reports here while knowing it's a bit naughty. Therefore making quality reports only normally seen by the pros available to all and sundry (in a way that the lawyers won't be able to moan too much about) gets big applause from me.

3) Cara's idea sounds good and I'll be supporting it by throwing reports his way (plenty pass this desk). My personal taste as a phaedrus of this world means that I don't really like community chats, message boards, internet clubs and all that. I tried for a while and in the end they didn't suit me so I won't be joining Cara's community personally. However they are popular with many people, that's wholly healthy and good, so for those inclined there seems to be a very good community spirit over at Cara community dot com and a high level of shared knowledge. You might consider joining yourself. Here's the link, go check it out.

And before we go any further, let me point out that I don't know Bill Cara. Never met him, never talked with him. I don't get any sort of commission or payment for recommending his community board to you. Nothing, zilch, zip, nada. This is a headsup for you guys out there, no more and no less. My only connection to his board is that a handful of readers here are also community members and that's how I know it exists.

The bottom line is that it may well be worth your while joining his community chat board. Give it some thought. Personally, I hope Cara's idea of making a quality research library available to all gets off the ground quickly and becomes a great success.