You may remember the Equities First Holdings (EFH) scandal which we did so much to expose? Fine chaps like the fraudster Rob Terry of Quindell (QPP) would take out a loan at a big discount to the value of shares pledged. They did not care as they knew the shares were way overvalued. The “lender,” EFH, would dump the stock at once so locking in a profit and when the shares fell a bit more the borrower would default. Easy! How to dump your entire holding in a worthless company while saying you were not. A document filed at Companies House, below, but natch not admitted to via RNS suggests the CEO of the fraud Supply@ME Capital Alessandro Zamboni has (again) been reading the Rob Terry playbook.

Over at Powerhouse Energy (PHE), the chairman is branded a liar by a High Court Judge but because Tim Yeo is a Tory Toff he gets to keep his job. At Verditek (VDTK) – the company that repeatedly announces big contracts to ramp the shares ahead of a placing only for the contracts to evaporate once the mug punters have ponied up, the Tory Toff in charge is Lord David Willetts. Because the good Lord is just the sort of fine fellow to whom we should all doff our cap, normal AIM rules don’t apply.

Hello, Share Casters. Companies connected with TV and films look worth consideration in the present uncertain climate. One of my babies in this field is Zoo Digital (ZOO). It’s produced numbers fairly recently that show Covid has not been a problem for it. And no wonder, when you supply dubbing and subtitles to foreign TV shows. The pandemic confined zillions of us to our sofas – and it was hard for programme makers to keep up their normal output.

Recommending shares in international specialist staffing group Empresaria (EMR) at a 70p offer price last month, we stated there looked reason for confidence that following updates will show further evidence of recovery building and that a full recovery can be delivered – also noting cost action taken last year should come through. Now there has been a half-year trading update and the shares are currently up to 80p.

Having asked for readers tips for 2021 for the prize of 1/2 litre of Tom Winnifrith’s Greek Hovel olive oil (2021 harvest) HERE, the following is an update on performance as at the end of July (to be eligible needed to have selected, on a once per username basis, a buy & sell pick from the LSE or AIM casino and the stocks not to have been suspended at the commencement of 2021)…

First up, thanks for all the tenners for Ian Westbrook. We still have two days to hit the £20,000 make loathsome Neill Ricketts sweat target and are now on £14,694. We are still talking to two potentially generous donors so please do keep the tenners flowing HERE to stop the Versarien (VRS) penny share huckster winning by default. Then onto lying on AIM and also covering up bad news with late releases. I look at Supply@ME Capital (SYME), Verditek (VDTK), Powerhouse Energy (PHE), Cellular Goods (CBX), Escape Hunt (ESC) and, of course, the fraud Zoetic (ZOE). The stench of chumocracy corruption is rife in the City as liars go unpunished. It is most depressing.

Previously writing on self-styled “global leader in sustainable LED lighting for industrial applications” Dialight (DIA), in May with the shares up to 320p I concluded in the context of the prior balance sheet and argued “encouraging start to the year”, I’ll review “interim results… expected to be published in early August” with interest but currently continue to avoid. Today it has announced those interim results…

Tom Winnifrith has this morning described why Non-Executive Director of Escape Hunt (ESC) John Story is not fit to be a plc director and you have to ask what will Story sell to pay his next margin call? He has 10,447,599 Escape Hunt shares and this ‘escape-the-room experiences’ company has today made a trading update, with its shares currently up 10% to 38.5p in response. But for how long?…

I doubt any ShareProphets readers are involved with Aquis-listed Freyherr International Group (FRYR), but news today shows us what a complete shambles it – and the Aquis exchange – really is. Freyherr is a cannabis play with operations in Slovenia. But it can’t get its accounts out due to Covid (natch) and is being booted off Aquis today. But fear not, for Baldrick has a cunning plan…..

AIM-listed Catenae Innovation (CTEA) has announced yet another RNS Reach – this time over a deal with Promake Ltd – but it is still, on the basis of its interims to March, almost revenue free and heading for a cash-crunch by Christmas. But never mind that, it’s got a deal with Promake…..which offers yet more Red Flags!

Do you remember a few days ago when Lyin’ Steve Sanderson of UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) issued an RNS to tell us about the operational problems at the Basur-3 drilling site in Turkey, the one last drilled before England won the World Cup? No. For Lyin’ Steve neglected to tell us about that bad news as AIM Rules suggest he should have. But fear not! The problem has been solved, well sort of.

In May of this year, I put it to Mr Neil Thapar, the PR supremo of Cellular Goods (CBX), that John Story was selling some of his 15 million shares in the joke David Beckham pot play, even though he was a lock-in not set to expire until 26 August this year. Thapar pooh poohed me. Today his company fesses that Story has indeed breached the prospectus lock-in.

Hello, Share Bakers. When the Footsie falls, there are always shares that still shine, often in the small cap bracket. One such outfit is Creightons (CRL) maker and seller of budget cosmetics and hand washes. It’s not long since I reviewed the jolly numbers behind the healthy share price, but let’s now look at something even more important for would-be investors. And that’s future trends. 

This is all about Ricketts who runs the worthless POS that is Versarien (VRS) trying to bully his critics into silence. Please listen and if each listener agrees that Ricketts must be stopped and donates £10 here, we will stop him. Please donate NOW!

Back in late May here I noted that I am ‘still excited about prospects for Johnson Matthey (JMAT)’.  However Malcolm a few weeks later here observed that ‘this is one of those British giants that should grow strongly into the brave new world of progressing technology’.  I completely agree.

The FCA should have thrown the book at Standard Listed Zoetic (ZOE) when – with the shares at 76p on February 3 2021 – I passed it this damning dossier. It did not and Zoetic and its bent band of advisers, led by the journalist-smearing mother Henry Harrison Topham of Buchanan, have taken this inaction as a cue to breach the disclosure rules in the most blatant way knowing that the FCA are toothless woke dullards. With the shares at just 43p to sell (and 43p overvalued), I have written to the FCA asking that it act on the latest rule breaches with, at the very least, a public censure.

I have been following the saga at AIM-listed Block Energy (BLOE) for some time, noting a need for beer and popcorn as things developed. But I have received a damning dossier, which you can read below, which is rather more explicit.

Here are five long reads that have nothing to do with shares. Put the kettle on, find a comfy chair. You have the time, don’t you? 
 

This just cannot go on!

This is the 100th edition of the ShareProphets Sunday Pub Quiz! To celebrate that, for the person with the best score today, I have a special prize: a I Support The Sheriff of AIM ballpoint pen to be delivered by a uniformed member of the UK government. In case of a tie, a name will be drawn from a hat.