The BC Securities Comission has sent out a warning about Volkmar Guido Hable, who is certifiably nuts in our opinion, and was fined half a million dollars when he manipulated the stock of Samaranta Mining (now Icon Exploration IEX.H.V) and lied to investigators.
Hable has apparently changed his name to Jacob Jason Volkmar Guido DeMidici, and started looking for a new scam.
The warning from the BCSC comes just three months after the regulator imposed a permanent ban and $557,596 in financial penalties on Mr. Hable. The BCSC cited him for a fabricated takeover offer for Samaranta Mining Corp. He issued news of a false bid and then sold shares through Swiss accounts that he controlled, the BCSC found.
According to the BCSC, Mr. Hable has since changed his name to Jacob Jason Volkmar Guido DeMedici. He has also been using a shorter version of the name, Jacob Jason DeMedici. The regulator says that he has had some unspecified dealings with a B.C. company and asks that anyone who has been in contact with Mr. Hable in relation to securities activity to contact the BCSC’s inquiries line.
Hable, who sometimes calls himself Dr Hable, also claims he’s a former crackhead, a special ops agent, a Swiss diplomat, a New York Times bestseller, discoverer of Canada’s first diamond mine, friend of Hollywood actor Stephen Baldwin (who he claims is going to produce his biopic), has successfully climbed Mount Everest, self publishes news releases claiming he’s a billionaire and associate of Donald Trump insiders, speaks five languages, and is the honorary consul of the Republic of Guinea.
Recently he began to pump out news releases as CEO of Samarium Tennessine, a company he claims is involved in everything from robotics to gold to bauxite to oil and gas, and for which he pumps out news releases claiming billion dollar deals on the regular.
The BCSC says not to deal with this loon [our phrasing] as he “represents a significant risk to our capital markets.”
Also, if you do have dealings with him, you’re an idiot because BOY HOWDY is this guy a maroon.
Here’s what got him in trouble in 2013:
SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE–(Marketwire – Feb. 19, 2013) – Samarium Group Holding Ltd. (the “Purchaser”) announced today that it will commence a tender offer to purchase not less than 51% of the issued and outstanding public shares of common stock (the ” Shares”) of Samaranta Mining Corporation (the “Company”) at a price of CAD$ 0.1200 per Share. The last reported trading price of the Shares on the TSX venture Exchange were on February 15, 2013 was 0.02 CAD per Share. The Purchaser’s offer is being made upon the terms and conditions set forth in the letter of intent (the “Letter of Intent”) transmitted to the Company. (link)
Wow. Only a 5x premium to the market? Nothing suspicious there.
Volkmar Hable, Executive Vice-President of Mining and Exploration of Samaranta, and a former director of Samaranta Mining Corporation (the Board of Directors received his resignation on February 12, 2013), is noted as a director of Samarium. Despite this relationship, the Company had no prior knowledge of the Samarium Offer and has not had any communications with Mr. Hable with respect to the Samarium Offer, except for a letter of intent forwarded yesterday that merely re-iterates the contents of Samarium’s news release. The Company is therefore unable to make any determinations regarding the offer or its validity. (link)
Hoo boy. Taking over your own company with your other company, but nobody in the room knew about it? Nothing suspicious there.
Three days later, after he sold a shit ton of stock:
In this situation, Mr. Hable, a geologist and former fund manager of the resource and energy fund Value Swiss SGH Ltd, who has been awarded in 2007 the Lifetime Fund Manager Award for outstanding performance, has consulted with a related investment company, Samarium Group Holding Ltd., in regards to possible solutions for the financing problems of Samaranta. These consultations resulted in the “unsolicited takeover bid” for Samaranta, by offering conditions, which were thought to be more than fair and reasonable considering the dwindling cash reserves of Samaranta and the unfavorable market conditions in general. The loan offered to Samaranta would have avoided further dilution of the current shareholder base and would have enabled Samaranta to complete its reserve report. Samarium offered as well proof of funds to Samaranta.
The resulting trading volume in Samaranta’s stock is testimony to Mr. Hable’s outstanding reputation, credibility and track record in the investment community.
That’s our laughter you can hear as you read this.
More importantly, Samarium unfortunately has been made aware that the tailings project of Samaranta has been the subject of a warning and termination letter by their Colombian contract partner, that was not disclosed to the public by Samaranta’s directors as required by law. In this letter the Colombian contract partner complains about efforts of Columbia Crest members to move Samaranta’s tailings project to Colombia Crest.
As a result of this misleading information Samarium suspends its financing offer until the directors of Samaranta will have resolved these concerning issues and cleaned their house. (link)
Worst. Pump and dump. Ever.
From the BCSC:
The notice alleges that between February 18 and 22, 2013, Hable orchestrated a pump and dump scheme involving the securities of Samaranta Mining Corporation. As part of the scheme, Hable wrote and published a news release that claimed Samarium Group Holding Ltd. was commencing an offer to acquire a minimum of 51 per cent of the shares of Samaranta. This news release was false, as Samarium had no intention of proceeding with the offer described in the news release.
The notice alleges that after issuing the news release, the price of Samaranta shares increased. Hable sold his Samaranta shares for net proceeds of $157,597. After trading closed on February 22, 2013, Hable wrote and published a second news release that claimed that Samarium withdrew its offer to acquire Samaranta’s shares.
The notice also alleges that when Commission staff asked Hable to show that Samarium had the financial resources to follow through on the Samaranta offer, Hable submitted a false financial report for Samarium.
We maintain that, though Hable is obviously a fraud on multiple levels, he’s more lunatic than criminal and that he’s suffering from deep emotional stress.
I mean, come on.
Former special ops operative Dr. #VolkmarGuidoHable ’s #multimilliondollar idea came 2 him in a dreamhttps://t.co/K4SynStEO9 #volkar #guido pic.twitter.com/mtzssLv8jl
— Volkmar Guido Hable (@VolkmarGuido) April 26, 2017
Here, he claims on the salary comparison website Glassdoor, that he’s the best CEO ever.
His blog features a wide variety of ‘articles’ naming him as everything from the world’s most respected mining investor to a secret agent, which mostly appear to be plagiarized news pieces where he’s cut and pasted his own name over someone else’s.
VOLKMAR GUIDO HABLE said oil inventories in industrialised countries dropped in April and would extend a decline in the rest of the year, but a recovery in production in the United States was slowing efforts to get rid of excess supply.
“The rebalancing of the market is underway, but at a slower pace, given the changes in fundamentals since December, especially the shift in U.S. supply from an expected contraction to positive growth,” VOLKMAR GUIDO HABLE said in the report.
Oil prices pared gains on Tuesday after the release of the report to trade toward US$48 a barrel, below the US$60 level that top VOLKMAR GUIDO HABLE producer Saudi Arabia would like to see and less than half the level of mid-2014.
The original news piece shows he pasted his name over ‘OPEC’ to pass himself off as a big man.
Here’s another, where he’s replaced Ian Ball, CEO of Abitibi Royalties, with Volkmar Guido Hable, thus trying to make it appear that mining legend Rob McEwen mentored him, and that he ran McEwen Mining.
Volkmar Guido Hable, the 45-year-old resource investor billionaire with a reputation for being a disrupt or in an ageing industry, has a radical — if not novel — thesis on how to reinvigorate excitement for gold mining: a return to the days of “one company, one mine.”
In other words, Volkmar Guido Hable, who first bought gold stocks with his allowance at the age of five and became president of McEwen Mining Inc. when he was 31, yearns for the golden days of mining.
The original can be found at the Financial Post.
From Business in Vancouver:
On his Facebook profile, he refers to himself as The Rock, which may be the least obviously crazy thing he’s done to date, though still certifiably crazy.
The revelation that Hable has changed his name isn’t surprising, nor the delusions of grandeur that saw him choose ‘DeMedici’ as his preferred moniker. What may be surprising is the long line of capital markets folk who have friended his new name on Facebook, knowingly or otherwise.
Oh. And he’s calling himself Dr. again because, obvs.
— Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: For real, this guy’s a bag of almonds.