In last week’s post “Understanding conflicts of interest, Gwen Preston and West Red Lake Gold Mines (RLG) edition” we uncovered the suspicious looking connection between the company in question, the self-titled “independent” mining analyst Gwen Preston and her apparent boss at “Kitco Gibson Capital” and “Beneath The Surface Capital”, Scott Gibson. Since that post IKN has found out a lot more about this pairing of Gwen “Resource Maven” Preston and Scott Gibson. But we’re going to keep it strictly business here.
Gibson has all the “Company XYZ Capital Inc” thing going on with his companies, but in fact he’s nothing more or less than a penny stock promoter, true and classic Vancouver style. The way he bought 2m units of the recent ten cent RLG placement (and got another 261,000 papers in finder’s fees) is typical for the way he operates.
Scott Gibson has now styled himself as the mentor of Gwen Preston. At PDAC 2016 he was very forward about the business relationship, telling trusted IKN sources that he was “going to make her (Gwen Preston) a millionaire”. That’s a direct quote.
On March 9th, the last day of PDAC 2016 the pair spent a long time in deep conversation, one-on-one, in the Intercontinental Hotel Toronto. Here’s how another IKN source (who will also remain nameless) put it:
“I saw Gwen Preston and Scott Gibson staying there for hours as we were tired and chilling out for at least 2 hrs. They were not with anybody else. Only two of them apparently in serious discussion and planning. This I can say for sure as we were seated very close to them.”
The timing of that is most interesting, of course. It came just days before Gwen Preston reco’d RLG to her subscribers and then started talking up the stock in all sorts of social media channels. It also came just before the aforementioned $575,000 placement closed, the biggest taker being Scott Gibson. Which is probably just coincidence, innit guv.
By the way, Gwen Preston likes to promote the fact that she learned her trade while a reporter at The Northern Miner, but the place she really found out about how to scam the retail world and get rich off their backs was the two years she spent working under Marin Katusa at Casey Research. Looking back it all fits the pattern, as nowadays her job consists of pumping penny stocks at the behest of a person who proudly proclaims will make her a millionaire.
There’s your “independent analyst”, Canada. Enjoy.
UPDATE: Reader “C” chimes in after visiting the Gwen Preston website:
“What really makes me wonder: In Canada you really can say things like, “I do not accept money or shares from companies in exchange for coverage.” (source) and then pumping a stock hard while a company you are working for does?”