As ever, the City's top oil analyst, Zac "the Knife" Phillips of SP Angel is bang on the money with his comments on today's news of a $16 million fund raise at a minimum of 15.25p by perennial uber dog Pantheon Resources (PANR). The great man writes:

Woodford Patient Capital Trust  (WPCT)or his flagship Equity Income Fund? It is hard to know where to start for we have disastrous news from both today. How close are we to end game for Neil Woodford, a man happy to be described as Britain's Buffett.

Previously writing on HaloSource (HAL) I noted Neil Woodford dog’s balance sheet requirements in; surprise, surprise it ain’t looking good!. Now an announcement; “Suspension of trading”. Uh oh…

Hello, Share Whackers. My more inspirational Shareprophets colleague Chris Bailey has already posted on an exciting development for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). As this is a share I’ve also pushed for some years, allow me to add my own humble thoughts...

I start with a report back on my torture of last night. Then I look at a day of woe for Neil Woodford, commenting on the Kier (KIE) debacle which has shown him at his arrogant and reckless worst. Then I ask questions about share trades announced late yesterday in BCA marketplace (BCA), I look at Sosandar (SOS), Optibiotix (OPTI), Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV), Yu (YU.) and at Avanti Comunications (AVN).

And so at last we have the results of the forensic accounting review which followed the confession from AIM-listed Yu Group (YU.) on 24 October 2018 that its accounts were, in effect, a work of sheer fiction and has seen the company’s £12 million placing at £10 per share being investigated by the FCA. We already knew that the bill would be around £10 million – but now it is going to be around £13 million. As ever, the ShareProphets  RNS Translation Service is on hand to help us understand all this (original in bold).

Its bailout rights issue closed for acceptances yesterday, Kier Group (KIE) has announced “valid acceptances in respect of 24,276,286 new shares, representing approximately 37.66 per cent. of the total number of new shares to be issued pursuant to the fully underwritten rights issue”. Oh dear! And it gets worse…

Just when you thought it was dead, wrote Gary Newman on 5 December 2018. Clearly some people were on the pitch – they think its all over. Well, it is now! Last night at 5.40pm AIM-listed The People’s Operator (TPOP) announced the resignation of FinnCrap as its Nomad. That should have given this POS a month to find a new one, but since it has been suspended since failing to produce its FY17 accounts, it will be booted off the Casino on January 3^rd.

Shares in UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) have actually rallied to 1.35p to sell in recent days. Natch they remain grotesquely overvalued as the clock starts to tick on the countdown to yet an other placing. But still there are those who reckon that on £650k per annum Lyin’ Steve Sanderson is good value as CEO. Whatever. On Tuesday I asked for suitable captions for the photo below and there were many decent entries as you can see HERE. But there can be only one winner…NO!

Many thanks to you all for responding to this appeal. Once again, ShareProphets readers allowed Nick Richards and his team to turn the Woodlarks campsite into a magical Christmas paradise where 200 handicapped kids came to meet Santa and get a really high quality present. Once again your generosity changes lives and I thank you.

In this case the turd has been sugared, the pill polished but make no mistake, Midatech Pharma (MTPH) is well in the merde and that is bad news for Britain’s most conceited fund manager Neil Woodford whose funds own 20% of the equity.

There were two enormous red flags waving at NetScientific (NSCI), the healthcare IP commercialisation group. The first was the announcement a few weeks ago of a “strategic review” which in plain English means “we are fucked” and the second was that Britain’s worst performing fund manager Neil “Nomates” Woodford owns 47% of the company with the funds he used to manage round at Invesco owning another 19%. And so to today’s disastrous news.

Back in the day, I used to be an institutional fund manager and did go on a number of brokerage lunches at around this time of year. The essential underlying aim of these lunches did not change for years: a thank you for business given during the year...and a pitch or ten about stocks that could be bought (or sold) early the next year in order to keep that commission flow going (and from the broker's perspective hopefully building). It seemed to me that the ideas took a very simple form: buy the underperformers and sell the outperformers. Well who does not like a bargain or - indeed - to take profits? So from an akin premise - but with an added slice of cynicism (and no need to elicit your brokerage commission flows!) - what does a 'brokerage lunch list' throw up as interesting in December 2018 looking ahead into 2019?...

An intra-day (11:20am) “Bioprocessing partnership update & trading update” from mass spectrometry instruments developer Microsaic Systems (MSYS). This firstly “confirms that trading in 2018 remains in line with the board's expectations” and then that phase two of the partnership “with a global partner in bioprocessing… has now been completed successfully, with a clear addressable market identified and positive feedback received from potential customers”. So why a 25% share price fall, towards 1p?...

A General Meeting update from KEFI Minerals (KEFI), including detailing progress which sees “the development plan for the company's Tulu Kapi Gold Project in Ethiopia remains on schedule to start in January”…

Petrofac (PFC) is a British giant I don't think I’ve touched on before. But maybe now is the time to bring this engineer and constructor which serves the oil and gas world, to your notice. For one thing, it has had new orders worth $5 billion this year. The order pipeline is bulging with $10 billion in total...

I start by explaining that torture and it involves sociology lecturers. I then move onto explaining why Roland "fatty" Cornish is the utterly unacceptable face of crony capitalism. Then moving from the undeserving rich to the needy,  I ask you to give a few quid to Woodlarks HERE. I then look at Frontera (FRR) where the silence is deafening, Amur (AMC), Audioboom (BUST), Angus Energy (ANGS), UK Oil & Gas (UKOG), F*ck Yu (YU.) and finally at Gulf Marine (GMS) which is about to discover that just because it is Christmas that won't stop the banksters being total bastards. There is no season of goodwill for that profession.

Inheritance tax is a wicked double dip tax on the prudent which a real conservative Government would scrap. But until Pritti Patel MP sweeps to power we must try our best to minimize its impact. One way to do this is by investing in certain AIM stocks which are IHT exempt, for reasons I fail to comprehend. You want shares that will, at least, hold their value and Robert is your Mother's Brother. VSA boss Andrew Monk and his fund manager brother have devised such a portfolio for their mum. 

“Gulf Marine Services (LSE: GMS), the leading provider of advanced self-propelled self-elevating support vessels serving the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy sectors, provides the following trading update”. Not ‘is pleased to provide’ then. Let’s see why…

On Monday I wondered out loud what was happening about the forensic investigation into various accounting matters – including accrued income recognition and impairment of trade debtors at Yu Group (YU.). Then there was the small matter of a £12 million placing on the back of FY17 accounts which now appear to be somewhat questionable. Well blow me down with a feather: now the FCA has notified the company that it intends to conduct an investigation and the shares (which I called a bargepole of the highest order on the initial ‘fessing up of 24^th October) have now fallen below half of the IPO price of March 2016.