By John Helmer in Moscow

Sacre-Coeur Minerals (SCM) is a small Toronto-listed goldminer prospecting the malarial swamps of Guyana (South America), so far without striking El Dorado.

The company is so small, its website doesn’t publish financial reports. But the required filings with the stock exchange indicate that it is producing no gold; its operating expenses exceed its income; it paid out more in compensation last year to its Canada-based employees and consultants than to its Guyana prospecting organization; and it has obligations to share, warrant and options holders amounting to C$40.8 million.
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by John Helmer - Friday, September 24th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Victor Vekselberg was acquitted today by a Swiss court in Bellinzone of charges of illegal stock market manipulation in his 2006 takeover of Oerlikon, a major Swiss enterprise.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Rumpelstiltskin is one of the nastier dwarves in the canon of scary children’s stories. But for investors in goldmining, it is worth remembering that his investment in gold production proved to be pretty successful until he got careless when talking to himself, and revealed his name.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Transcontainer, the state-owned Russian Railways box transport company, has revealed that it will not list shares in its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The announcement confirms that for state-owned shares, the Kremlin sees little value, and considerable risk, in associating with the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEx). The Transcontainer IPO plan, which is being managed by JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, also reveals that in the investment markets for Russian shares, Hong Kong is regarded as the market of last resort for Russian companies unable to meet the disclosure requirements, governance tests, and investor risks that prevail in London, New York, Paris, and Frankfurt.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The US has responded with a powerful SOS for reporters, setting in motion a model for similar protections worldwide. SOS stands for Sod Off Schillings.

The new American legislation will make it impossible for practical purposes for Russians to attack American reporting of their activities by suing them or their newspapers in London. Russian businessmen who have made use of the London courts in this fashion include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Alisher Usmanov, Roman Abramovich, Sergei Frank, Gennady Timchenko, Sergei Generalov, Alexander Lebedev, Nikolai Gluchkov, Boris Berezovsky, and Oleg Deripaska. The London-based law firm of Schillings has made a great deal of money issuing threats to stop publication of investigations of the likes of them.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

According to the Chinese tradition, the original Budai (aka Laughing Buddha) was an eccentric Zen Buddhist monk. He lived in the Fenghua province during the Late Liang Dynasty in the first years of the 10th century. His name translates into English as “Promise this”.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 20th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

It hasn’t been a golden autumn for Peter Hambro (Petro) and Pavel Maslovsky (Pavlovsk) or their London Stock Exchange mining play, Petropavlovsk plc.

First, there was a problem with falling production – and falling share price. Then there was the refusal by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing committee to approve the application to spin off the iron-ore and titanium assets and sell shares of their new company called IRC Limited.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 20th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The west African republic of Guinea has never before been so important to Russian mining companies – and to the even bigger internationals. So when Guinean voters go to the polls for the runoff round of their presidential election, much is at stake – and not only for our Russian champions, Oleg Deripaska and Alexei Mordashov.
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by John Helmer - Friday, September 17th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Evraz, the most heavily indebted of Russian steelmakers, is signaling that it is about to sell a US subsidiary producing the valuable steel alloy ingredient, vanadium. But the signs are that there is no intention on the part of the controlling shareholders of Evraz – Roman Abramovich, Eugene Shvidler, and Alexander Abramov – to toss the vanadium baby out with the bathwater. The idea apparently is to take the company off the Evraz books, making the profit and loss accounts look better for banks and share markets, but keeping control of the vanadium by selling the company to a shareholder – for the time being.
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by John Helmer - Friday, September 17th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Victor Vekselberg, the chairman of the board of UC Rusal, went on trial in the Federal Penal Tribunal of Switzerland this week, charged with sharemarket violations, and facing a fine of 40 million Swiss francs ($40 million). That, according to the report of Le Temps today (see illustration), is the largest fine ever imposed by the Swiss authorities for stockmarket abuse.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, September 16th, 2010
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