Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Ian Telfer, one of Canada’s most well-known mining executives and chairman of Goldcorp Inc. (TSE:G), denied yesterday’s Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) allegations that connect him with an alleged illegal insider-trading scheme that yielded profits of $962,000 for eight people involved in buying shares.
The securities regulator claimed late Tuesday that, at least in two cases, Telfer recommended Eda Marie Agueci, a former executive assistant of GMP Securities LP’s chairman, to use her BlackBerry’s PIN-based messaging service to keep her activities secret from GMP. The OSC also states that Telfer helped Agueci expedite a secret trade in a firm that eventually became Gold Wheaton Inc.
In a statement, Telfer said he “categorically denied” wrongdoing and that he believed that the accusations by the OSC that he had acted contrary to the public interest were “completely without merit. “
The OSC Statement of Allegations also said Agueci’s brother-in-law, Santo Iacono, helped Agueci access and trade in a brokerage account about which her employer GMP Securities was unaware. This brokerage account allegedly allowed Agueci to trade in securities she wasn’t allowed to because GMP was working on corporate deals involving those mining company securities.
Besides Agueci and Iacono, Canadian regulators named Dennis Wing, a founding partner of investment bank First Marathon Securities, Josephine Raponi (Agueci’s cousin), Kimberley Stephany, Henry Fiorillo (then president of Research Management Group), Joseph Fiorini (then a Desjardins Securities vice president), John Serpa (Iacono’s business partner), and Jacob Gornitzski as participants in two so-called “trading rings”.
OSC’s probe came as the entity has stepped up efforts to clamp down on illegal activity in Canada’s capital markets and this case is the second major insider trading matter the OSC has launched in recent months.
None of the OSC’s allegations, however, include shares of $39-billion market capitalization Goldcorp, Canada’s ninth most valuable company that closed yesterday with only a 2.2% drop in its shares’ price.
( Image of Ian Telfer speaking at “Entrepreneurship 101” )
