IKN

Take physic, pomp

Robert Kopple and World Copper (WCU.v)

The May 24th NR out of World Copper (WCU.v) entitled “World Copper Announces Exercise of Zonia Royalty Option and Subsequent Buy-Out, Exercise of Warrants, and Conference Attendance” attracted attention from the peanut gallery, merely for the math involved. It explained that “the holder of an option to acquire a 1% net smelter returns royalty on future production from World Copper’s Zonia copper oxide project has exercised the Royalty Option by making a cash payment to World Copper of $1,407,867.” Then by previous agreement, WCU immediately bought back the 1% NSR from the mysterious and unnamed counterparty by giving him 7,781,235 shares of WCU and it doesn’t take an MBA to know that with those shares priced at 40c or so (less today), the mysterious Royalty Holder got a good deal. In effect, he paid 18.2c per share for that big block.

And indeed it is a he, as the beneficiary of this deal is one Robert Kopple, L.A. lawyer and long-term business partner of Henk van Alphen at Cardero Resources (and other deals). He was a director at Cardero. he’s now a director at WCU and aside his new shareholding, Kopple also owns 18.4m shares of WCU and around 13m warrants, what’s more he’s a creditor to the company to the tune of $3.3m cash. Indeed, Robert Kopple was the majority shareholder and creditor at Cardero before its merger with WCU and saw the debt rolled into the new vehicle when the deal went through. However, we’re only just warming up because Mr. Kopple has been receiving plenty of preferential treatment from his business pal Henk recently. For example, merely by agreeing to roll the entirety of his debt from Cardero to WCU, he was awarded a whole bunch of bonus warrants which, at the deal conversion rate of 4.86X, became this:

But wait! There’s more! When the deal to merge World Copper with Cardero was first conceived in April 2021, the 1% royalty Kopple cashed in on last week didn’t even exist. That was added later and announced in this June 2021 NR:

Which is strange. After all the Zonia project at the centre of this deal was already owned by Cardero and Robert Kopple was already a director of Cardero. Why should the company create a 1% NSR out of nowhere, then give it to one of its own directors? What’s more, the debt owed to Kopple still hasn’t gone away according to its 1q22 filings:

Half of the $3.3m owed to Kopple as at March 31st 2022 gets paid back in the next 12 months, the other half is on the long-term liabilities and all at 8% annual interest, of course. So summing up, what do we now know about Robert Kopple?

  • He’s long-term business partner and colleague of WCU Chair Henk van Alphen
  • Unlike most L.A. based lawyers, he’s rather shy and didn’t want his name on the latest NR
  • He’s a new director of WCU and previously, he was a director of Cardero
  • He already owned over 18m shares and 10m warrants of WCU before the latest deal
  • While a director of Cardero, he got his company to add a 1% NSR on Zonia to the deal for his personal benefit, no matter that Cardero was the owner of Zonia.
  • Thanks to that post-facto clause and the 1% NSR deal, he’s just bought over 7.7m shares of WCU at less than half price
  • He also got over 3m warrants of the new WCU just for agreeing to allow them to carry his $3.3m financial debt
  • He’s also getting all his $3.3m back, half in the next 12 months and half later. Plus interest.

All this for a director of a company with a proven track record for paid pumping to retail (the crop that never fails). Any thoughts on why WCU.v price chart looks like this in 2022, kind reader?

Hey, I wonder who was selling while Bill Cara was extolling the virtues of WCU to his sheep?

6 Comments

    That pair is now controlling Gelum Resources. Once Pumped by a guy named Eric. Before he got Covid and nearly died (anti vaxer) He pumped Jagercor to his free suckers a day before it was delisted (guess he got a heads up to create a liquidity event) it emerged 4 years later as Gelum Resources. The end.

    Reply

    I’m sure if the authorities looked back at his promotional email (somethings up teaser) and the timing of the delisting (within hours) then looked at who sold that last day of trading for Jagercor they would discover a few interesting tid bits. But that never happens and they count on that.

    Reply

    I think the work you did on this investigation is amazing. I got screwed on this also and in fact Yagercor lost me so much money. Karl Antonius pump but passed on to Henk and his lawyer friend. Vacuum salesmen. Didnt Karl go to jail for a sex offence? Thank you Douglas Fir for letting us know. I hope they all fail.

    Reply

    Unfortunatly Mr. Evans (sure why not) the work you say I did on this investigation is what the BCSC should be doing with the complaints you and other hopefully have provided. N’est-ce pas.

    Reply

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