perhaps burnt shareholders will get some tips from the following...

perhaps burnt shareholders will get some tips from the following article about how not to get hoodwinked by bogus juniors like this.

Date: August 04, 2005

Advisers Resign and Reefton Mining’s Shares Are Suspended…. At Last.

First thing this morning the broker and nominated adviser to ASX and AIM listed Reefton Mining – HB Corporate, which is broker Hoodless Brennan, and Grant Thornton - withdrew their services to the company. No company can remain listed on AIM without the services of these worthy advisers so a temporary suspension of dealing in the shares was announced within minutes by the London Stock Exchange.

No official reason was given for the resignations and none could be extracted from Grant Thornton which was not the Nomad at the time of the IPO, so must have been attracted to the company at a later date. Minews, however, has taken a sceptical attitude towards the company since it first listed on AIM as the following extract from an article published two years ago shows:

‘When ASX listed Reefton Mining joined the AIM market in May 2002 the reason given by managing director Vladimir Nikolaenko was that the move would provide exposure for his diamond exploration efforts in Namibia to UK and European potential investors with a track record of supporting junior mining stocks. As Minews pointed out at the time it might provide exposure, but as the listing was simply by way of introduction there would be no liquidity in the northern hemisphere. This has proved to be the case with a single trade worth £875 in the whole of June following the placing, one worth £400 in May and the only other one this year was in February when £600 worth of shares changed hands.’

The company was never invited to have a page of information on Minesite and we became even more sceptical of its management earlier this year when an announcement was made about a discovery of uranium on its Erongo project in Namibia. This is an extract from an article published on April 12th this year.

‘Just a single day after Australian listed Reefton Mining announced that it had hit uranium on its Erongo polymetallic project in Namibia its managing director, Vladimir Nikolaenko, resigned. Funny that. Apparently he has other business commitments that he has to attend to and the board has expressed its ‘gratitude for his many long years of service to the company’. Usually managing directors leave when things are going badly and they can see no way to improve them. Here the company appears to have a new lease of life as a uranium miner, or does it?

The actual statement from the company at the end of March was headed “Uranium Samples Recovered at Erongo Project, Namibia”. Little doubt about that then as the technical director Garry Hemming is described as an exploration geologist with over 26 years of experience in various commodities, geological environments and countries. He has consulted on a range of projects throughout the Australia, the Philippines and Namibia but his particular expertise appears to be in diamonds. There is certainly little doubt that he knows more about geology than Simon Gilbert, the chief executive, who is a metallurgical engineer with experience of base metals, gold and mineral sands projects. The other two directors would not be able to contribute much as the chairman is an accountant and Antony Ogilvie Thompson’s only claim to fame seems to be that he is the son of his father.’

The sad thing is that the company managed to persuade a group of Aussie brokers – RM Capital, Leadenhall Australia, Hudson Securities and Montague Stockbrokers to raise A$3 million for it by way of a placing only two months ago. Doubtless the wires have been humming between London and Australia today as they try to discover what particular straw broke this camel’s back. Grant Thornton, after all, is not known for resigning from tricky companies and Hoodless Brennan has yet to build a track record in the mining industry. They must have stumbled on something pretty horrific and could not get out of the door quick enough. Hopefully no one else steps forward to take on the job as the shares will then remain suspended.