clyde's mate ager who walked away with a big pile of dough - the past is the key to the future
Delgratia has been around for 13 years and has turned nary a profit. But boosted by encouraging press releases about prospects in Nicaragua, Mexico, and the state of Nevada, the stock--which traded for as little as $3.50 a year ago on Nasdaq's small-cap market--rose to about $8 as the year began. Then it got crazy. The company posted promising drill-hole results from its project in Nevada, and a member of Delgratia's investor relations team claimed a potential deposit of five million ounces in gold. Shares quadrupled--increasing to a high of $34.75 on Wednesday, March 19.
The denouement was predictably hideous. Questions cropped up over the Nevada property's value. A Nevada mining official challenged the company's test results. The stock went into free fall, and in one day lost roughly half its value before Nasdaq halted trading on Friday, March 21. In a statement from Delgratia's chairman, Dr. Charles Ager, the company backed off from the claim of five million ounces, saying, "it is premature to quantify the potential of this gold system." The same press release also revealed that Delgratia was increasing its interest in the Nevada property. The unusual admission? It was acquiring the stake from a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands that is 50% owned by Ager's family.
And who could forget those 1,000-ft.-plus drill intersections from Delgratia Mining’s Josh property in Nevada, or the company’s 5-million-oz. calculation made in haste on the back of an envelope? It is not often we hear executives telling mining analysts (and onebelievers) that they should buy shares of their company (Delgratia) if they “want to get rich”; with the alternative choice being to stay on the sidelines and “stay poor.” And it is not often that we see an “audit” performed that purports to investigate assay results suspected of being phony, yet which places an obvious suspect on the audit team after swearing him to “secrecy.” Oh, and by the way, the audit finds that Delgratia’s top brass are innocent and the “victims of data falsification.”
