Longshott, there are a number of issues that ASIC could certainly look into. Not least of which is the well documented sale of 9.7m shares by Mal Lucas-Smith prior to being instated as a director. Way to go, Mal. You showed some great faith in EHR back then, now you want us to elect you to a permanent position? I wish I could vote against him, but the form only shows 'For' or 'Withdraw'. How is that a vote? The blighter will get in no matter what because Torey and Ray and DJ Carmichael's have the numbers.
Other issues that deserve scrutiny include their claim of a Joint Venture with Djibouti's Department of Electricity (EdD) for the development of the Lac Assal geothermal resource. A huge number of shares were traded shortly after this announcement (mostly above 6c). Later, Reykjavik Energy Invest was quoted in the Icelandic media as saying EHR's claim of a JV was false and was made for the sole purpose of moving the share price. EHR never retracted their claim of having a JV with EdD, which amounts to fraud in my book.
The Copahue farm-in has become a farce and I have no idea what happened there. Alarm bells should have been ringing with me when our 'partner' Geothermal One appeared to consist of just one man, Rob Furse, and our directors withheld information that there was an injunction in the Argentinean Supreme Court on environmental grounds (which was overturned about 15mths ago). After having claimed that 90% of the finance was in the bag and we had Xstrata begging for our green power, EHR then failed to close the gap with the $30m CIFI raising (remember that hand-drawn bridge?). Is it possible that our position was undermined by Rob Furse? Even now, we have not received any update on what happened other than one sentence in the recent quarterly which cited "extreme constraints on the availability of capital".
I have to admit that I made the mistake of becoming emotionally attached to this stock when I ought to have paid attention to the fact that things weren't stacking up and our directors were not disclosing what they ought to have been.
I recall reading short statements in their reports that said words to the effect of, "certain information has not been disclosed in relation to Project X on the grounds that it might unreasonably prejudice the market against the company." What tosh! As owners of this company, we MUST know the positives as well as the negatives in order to make informed decisions about our investment.
What is completely unreasonable is our directors deliberately pulling the wool over our eyes and failing to disclose their shortcomings to the market.
The more astute shareholders were able to exit EHR with modest losses, however, those of us who desperately wanted to believe the announcements from our directors have stuck around and suffered massive losses. I am embarrassed to say that I have lost more than $50k to this mob. My brother has lost more than twice that amount! And what do we get from our directors? No explanation whatsoever, just a prospectus that touched on some airy fairy idea of broadening our focus to unconventional oil and gas. What the ...!! I invested in a New Energy company. If they were to broaden their focus, should it not be within the Renewables sector?
Sorry, rant over. I have to get back to work on my research before my scholarship money runs out. Then I'll really be up the creek without a paddle.
EHR Price at posting:
0.2¢ Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Held
