Thursday 20 February 2014

Sheldon Inwentash Insider Positions

Inca Kola points to Kip Keen's article at Mineweb discussing the limited volumes coming into the miners on the venture exchange and how the oil dominated venture index can give some misleading signals, as I
previously explored HERE looking at the stocks held in the Venture composite.
(Though we should note that the GDXJ volumes are significant - see charts in Justin Smyth's article HERE)

Keen's article also discusses the volume of selling by Pinetree and Sheldon Inwentash.
much of this selling, as John Kaiser, of Kaiser Research, pointed out to me last Friday, came from two related sources: Pinetree Capital - a junior that owns an extensive portfolio of junior stock - and its Chairman and CEO Sheldon Inwentash, a well known stock promoter in Canada.
Doing a quick count of Inwentash and Pinetree volume from SEDI insider reports (SEDI is Canada's regulatory repository of insider information) shows that during the last few trading days of January and first few trading days of February, Pinetree and Inwentash accounted for at least 50 million in Venture volume. On January 31 - when Venture volume hit 351 million - Inwentash and Pinetree traded in two equities, among numerous others, accounting for 20 million of that day's volume at least. 
This was a sell off of Bear Lake Gold and Nortec positions. More broadly, according to SEDI, Inwentash either directly, or through a related party, ceased to be, or be associated with, a 10-percent-plus stock holding as an insider in 30 junior companies in 2014.
I seem to recall Kaiser seeing this as bullish repositioning. But why hold these losers all the way down?
Bear Lake Gold is subject to a bid from Greg Gibson's Kerr Mines, so could be disposed for that reason.

Also comment by John Kaiser discussed here on 7 Mar 14
Pinetree is suspected of having dumped its garbage on Friday when the TSXV volume doubled to over 300 million as anonymous pounded stink bids in the pennies for over a hundred juniors. Pinetree does not disclose positions in which it owns less than $1 million worth of paper, which was a pretty small list as of September 30, 2013 when its financials disclosed that a portfolio that cost $644 million had shriveled to $124 million. That's admittedly not as bad as one of Eric Sprott's funds which Bloomberg alleged had shrunk from $3 billion to $300 million. It may be true because recently Mr BigHead announced that Sprott had been removed from all investment decision making responsibilities. Who exactly is this supposed to appease? Eric Sprott was brilliant during the last decade, but crucified himself after the crash by embracing the gold bug narrative which for anybody with a basic understanding of arithmetic and logic had to mean avoiding all gold equities except new discovery plays whose grade was such as to grant immunity from lower gold prices. Has Eric been strapped into a Rocking Chair, or has he gone onto a soul-searching retreat from which he will emerge much better attuned to the reality of his sector? Or is Rick Rule the new Rocker of the Chair? 
> The big guys are hurting and they are cleaning house, though in the case of Goodman and Sprott it is due to redemptions, while in the case of a closed end fund like Pinetree it is because Inwentosh is preparing for the start of a new cycle. The junior side of the street is complaining they got no warning. Hurray for Sheldon! It's a sign he means business going forward. 

It seems timely to revisit where Inwentash remains an insider (holding over 10% of the company) and the positions recently sold.
Are the outstanding positions those he likes, or just couldn't get a bid for? Where will funds be re-invested? Pinetree's holdings can be seen HERE, but smaller positions go unreported.
To see Inwentash or Pinetree's insider positions look to SEDI








1 comment:

  1. Pinetree defaulted on a debenture last year, then announced a "cure." I don't know if they are liquidating to deal with that same issue (debt/equity ratio) or for some other reason.

    http://www.pinetreecapital.com/investors/news_releases/index.php?&content_id=630
    http://www.pinetreecapital.com/investors/news_releases/index.php?&content_id=632
    http://www.pinetreecapital.com/investors/news_releases/index.php?&content_id=639

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