Minding the London Stock Exchange’s Business
Independent and Fearless Financial Journalism Funded by Readers
Even a few of our detractors have now come around
Nope, it doesn't ask Cheryl Cole for a hook-up; this petition is even more pointless. Hosted on Change.Org, it was launched by cash-strapped Cellular Goods (CBX), along with seven other “leading” companies.
Ooops - it looks as though the LGBT-friendly promoter of the world’s most homophobic regimes, Mr David Beckham, may need to rescue his CBD play, Cellular Goods (CBX), as today's interims are truly disastrous.
The writing is on the wall for Cellular Goods (CBX), the CBD company floated by Jonathan Bixby, Mike Edwards, Andy Frangos, Peter Wall of Argo Blockchain (ARB) infamy, and serial liar, John Story.
Here in Greece, it was Good Friday but, for shareholders in Cellular Goods (CBX), it was anything but good. Having initially denied reports - on this website - that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) was banning its ingestible CBD products, evil PR genius, Neil Thapar, served up a dreadful admission to ruin folks' weekend. That makes his rather hasty “don’t panic” RNS of 11 April, look all the more disingenuous.
This is a farce. Losing your CEO less than a year after IPO, seeing your shares plummet, and facing insolvency by Christmas, is bad enough. But now, Cellular Goods (CBX) has got its knickers in a twist as to whether or not the Food Standards Agency is banning its products. This is sheer comedy.
I explain why the podcast is late. Apologies. Then I look at a bubble that is clearly bursting, what caused it and what happens next. I mention a number of companies, including: Cellular Goods (CBX); Seed Innovations (SEED); Eden Pharma; and Chill Brands (CHLL).
I take a tour through four weekend press articles starting with that greedy scumbag Nigel Farage – I refer in the podcast to THIS PIECE. Then to two great pieces on Ukraine and on the decadent West by Peter Hitchens and Matthew Syed respectvely before discussing the Sunday Times article on CBD and pot stocks. Finally I discuss Chris Bailey’s excellent piece on this website and my own approach to shares I own, mentioning Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX) and some news breaking in the USA.
The fraud that is Chill Brands (CHLL) is running out of cash fast with sales at levels that are almost statistically insignificant. Rather than update us all on that tale of woe there is another spoof. This is all part of an attempted ramp to get a deeply discounted bailout placing away as soon as is possible. Todays spoof is laughable. I offer a translation service
There are certain questions that the fraud Chill Brands (CHLL) will not answer because were it to do so truthfully it would expose just how badly its business is failing. With a three months to September trading update due within a couple of weeks I have written to the company with those questions
Canadian and Aquis listed Yooma (YOOM) has today bought the leading British CBD brand Vitality for, depending how you look at it, £8 million or £10.2 million. The read across for the valuation of Chill Brands (CHLL), the fraud formerly known as Zoetic, is a disaster.
On February 3 2021 I published a damning 60 Red flag dossier on a fraud called Zoetic (ZOE) with the shares at 76p. The response was utterly poisonous.
I can reveal that despite covering up industrial scale breaches of FDA Regulations after I published the damning 60 red flag dossier, the fraudsters at Zoetic (ZOE) continue to breach FDA guidelines as they try, and fail, to sell material quantities of CBD products via AATAC. I have alerted the FDA to this rule breach and wonder how AATAC will respond if it gets roped into any investigation? I shall also be contacting it this week.
Shares in the Standard Listed fraud that is Zoetic International (ZOE) are, at 56p mid, almost 50% off their all-time highs achieved at peak pump earlier this year. To have suffered such slippage amid a bull market for pot and small cap stocks takes some doing and is, in itself, something of a red flag. The posh but extremely dim and morally bankrupt PR man for this firm, Mr. Henry Harrison-Topham, tried to steady the nerves of the fools invested here with a trading update but it was no good. It was a case study in where what the company did NOT say serves as a red flag.
Given that it has lied on an industrial scale to investors, regulators and consumers and managed first half sales of just £54,000, I think it will not surprise anyone terribly that I view the fair value of shares in Zoetic International (ZOE) as 0p. But I published all the evidence of the malfeasance and parlous financials and the shares still headed to well over 100p valuing this company at more than £200 million. That was two months ago. Now they are 57p to sell and falling fast. If you can short you should do so as this should be a penny stock really very soon.
To be fair, I never said that my target for this fraud was 4.3p, I just explained how, if you made wildly optimistic assumptions about current year sales then on a read-across from Love Hemp, 4.3p was fair value. I actually think 0p is fairer as Zoetic International (ZOE) is a fraud which will eventually run out of other people’s money. But a corporate deal in the US suggests yesterday that, maybe, fair value is 0.5p.
Once upon a time, there was only one CBD company listed in the UK, Zoetic (ZOE). It lied to investors, regulators and customers and was pumped by unscrupulous investors and PR veterans of the China fraud scams, and its rarity value and the lamentable failure of the woke dullards at the FCA to address all that lying saw the shares ramped to ludicrous levels. But now more CBD businesses are listing and that throws a spotlight on valuations. The clear read across implication is that Zoetic shares are going to crash.
Zoetic (ZOE) owning morons are getting terribly excited by news that its products are NOT to be removed from the very few shelves on which they gather dust here in the UK. This is all to do with a tightening of the rules for selling CBD as an ingestible.
I can exclusively reveal that Neill Ricketts will be announcing later today the launch by Versarien (VRS) of a new range of graphene-enhanced CBD Range and that in order to maximise value for shareholders, this new division, Versarien Blockchain CBD, is to be spun off onto the AIM casino via a separate IPO. In terms of the cash needed for the project, Ricketts says “funding secured.”
In the old days misleading investors with lies or grotesque exaggeration was frowned upon but it seems we live in a new modern world where this sort of thing is just fine and dandy. Let’s go back to April Fool’s day 2019.
On 19 November 2020, the fraudsters at Zoetic International (ZOE) announced a big claim. Today we have another. Natch the shares are up but what those morons buying need to focus on is what is not said rather than what is said.
The FCA is, as we know, looking hard into numerous matters relating to Zoetic International (ZOE) and Path Investments made it abundantly clear this week that this was the reason it had to pull out of a transaction with the fraudulent, and technically insolvent, Main Market listed pot company. But I had an email last night which suggests that things could well get a lot worse.
That Path could not get FCA approval for a prospectus involving a deal with Zoetic International (ZOE) as emerged yesterday should confirm that the floor shitters are all over the fraud which has lied to its, very few, customers to investors and to regulators and which is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. I have today written to the FCA to raise new concerns as to whether Zoetic can remain listed without issuing a fresh prospectus, which it cannot afford. The detailed letter is below:
Natch the statement talks of big numbers but the reality is that this trading statement is a statement of failure to meet expectations in earlier statements and a fess up of lost contracts. Of course the moronic shareholders in Zoetic International (ZOE) love it. Where do we start? On 3 September 2020 when we were told:
Tomorrow, I shall publish my correspondence with the FDA in America which has the power to shut down the entire business of Zoetic (ZOE) for its serial rule breaches. But for today I stay in dear old Blighty. I published the dossier showing the lies and law-breaking of Zoetic (ZOE) on Wednesday and naturally, being a fine upstanding, badger-hating member of the financial community ensured that the FCA saw the entire document. At 8.36 PM on Friday the regulator got back to me. It says:
On Thursday 4th February at 7 AM a CBD company Cellular Goods announced its plans to raise £8 million on a £20 million valuation and join the (sub) Standard List, home to so many frauds and dogs. The night before, Sky News came up with the “scoop” that this news could be revealed as soon as the following morning and that David Beckham had invested and would soon sign a deal to promote the CBD skin product. Oooooooh a nice photo of Becks and blow off comment with no questions asked, this is the corrupt MSM and a PR drop all over again as I noted with the other listed company where Becks has “invested”, Guild Esports (GILD) the other day HERE.
The FCA will by now have had ample opportunity to read yesterday’s explosive dossier on Zoetic (ZOE) HERE. I sense, however, that most folks owning the shares will not have done so since they think not paying £1.99 for a day pass is a cost saving as they prepare to kiss goodbye to their savings. Whatever. It is a false economy for you morons. But for the cheapskates, outside the paywall, I offer you one slam dunk and material lie from that dossier. And companies that tell monster lies to deceive investors are frauds, are they not?
This uber-ramped but almost insolvent company will not like what follows. Since it is 100% fact based and verified there is little it can do, but if it wishes to threaten me with legal action the response will be “see you in Court Bitchez!”. I shall be ensuring that my numerous concerns are brought to the attention of my good friends at the FCA later today.
Having written a piece just three weeks ago about Highlands Natural Resources (HNR) and the likelihood of it needing more cash very soon, todays news of a placing didn’t really come as much of a surprise to me.
Back in March I covered Highlands Natural Resources (HNR) and its announcement that it was diversifying into cannabis, as well as highlighting concerns over the high level of costs associated with running the business.
I’m sure some investors must have wondered what the directors of AIM listed oil and gas outfit Highlands Natural Resources (HNR) had been smoking when they announced yesterday that they were diversifying into cannabis!
