After this morning’s quick post on CEO.ca and the recent “change in attitude” of Frank Giustra lackey Tommy Humphreys towards NexGen Energy (NXE.v), IKN has been contacted by sources close to the story with a most interesting back-story. But before we get to the exposé, please note that your author has no position or opinion about NXE.v or any other Athabasca stock for that matter. I couldn’t be more neutral and what’s more regulars round here know my negativity towards the whole uranium sector anyway, it’s all for somebody else.
We understand that Tommy Humphreys was a strong supporter and promoter of the NXE.v story on his CEO.ca promo pump hype site. Along with his chat room lackeys, it was one of the stocks he repeatedly put in front of the casual reader’s eyes for many weeks and months. However, he didn’t have any sort of investor relations or promotion and “sponsored coverage” agreement with the company. Unlike many of the other stocks that pumphouse puts in front of people’s eyes that need to pay-to-play, NXE got a freebie, probably because Humphreys was long the stock on the open market and playing a straight pump.
He therefore decided to approach NXE.v and ask them to pay CEO.ca for coverage. For their own reasons NXE decided to decline the offer. And then, all of a sudden, Tommy Humphreys decided that he didn’t like the company any longer and started finding excuses to bash the stock at any given opportunity on his website. He also stated that he’d sold some of his shares (which could be 99% of them of course).
Got that so far:
1) Tommy likes NXE
2) Then Tommy asks NXE for money.
3) Then NXE doesn’t give Tommy money.
4) Then suddenly, Tommy doesn’t like NXE any more.
All facts but sadly that’s only half the story as he’s now started making very personal attacks on NXE’s officers. This is what he said about NXE CEO Leigh Curyer at CEO.ca on May 14th 2016 (at 9:37pm) during last weekend’s Metals Investment Forum:
And that’s all he wrote, short’n’sweet no editing by IKN. The image of a Canadian junior CEO doing the “Tony Montana look” (aka Scarface) and surrounding himself with a bevy of women is all very cute, but in fact Leigh Curyer was with his wife, with NXE corp dev manager Travis McPherson, Travis’s wife and two friends of one of the wives, because it happened to be her birthday. Understandably, when they found out the CEO was being compared to a cocaine baron and his wife some sort of hanger-on floozy the NXE officers were livid with Tommy Humphreys and according to sources close to the story, they have fallen out with the two-faced rat in no uncertain terms. That’s not surprising, as they’ve finally worked out he’s the type of Vancouver scum that will pump your company and then ask for money to keep doing so.
Or else.
It’s the classic ‘protection racket’ business model and as he’s already shown, he’s not afraid of going way out of the business sphere and running smear campaigns on CEOs to the point where their spouses get hit by the collateral damage if he doesn’t get his nasty little way and his grubby hands on your money. So, junior mining company boss, be aware of what you’re up against when CEO.ca and Tommy Humphreys come knocking at your door offering “sponsored coverage”.