I preface this post with a few disclaimers:
1) although I currently have no position with Canbiola, I have been long in the past.
2) even though I think this discovery suggests shady business practices, I am still hopeful for Canbiola’s future in the CBD market.
3) I have tried to be very objective in my analyses of Canbiola, and not disclosing the following information would mean that I am no longer acting objectively. After all, you have to take the good with the bad.
4) finally, the broker I use does not allow me to short Canbiola, so I have nothing to gain by posting this information.
With that being said, I finally have to disclose some information that I came across when I first read Canbiola’s 10-K back in April.
For those of you who remember, Canbiola recently released Island Stock Transfer (IST) as their transfer agent due to the fraud charges brought against Carl Dilley - who was the owner of IST and also a director for Canbiola.
More or less, he was charged with selling securities for dozens of sham companies. Basically he was selling shares for fake companies and keeping investor money. For obvious reasons, he resigned from Canbiola soon thereafter.
Well, after that, Canbiola hired a new transfer agent: Transhare Corporation.
At first, I thought “wow, great to see them dump the scammer and hire someone else,” I even posted about it on this board. Until, I started digging.
What stood out to me at first was the address. Both companies, IST and Transhare are located at the same address: 15500 Roosevelt Blvd, Clearwater, FL 33760.
The only difference is that IST’s office is in Suite 301 and Transhare’s office is in Suite 302 - the very next office door over.
I didn’t want to make any assumptions, because they could just be located in some financial district after all. So I looked the building up on google maps and got a street view of the office. It’s just a big, typical office building. Nothing fancy, just a building with a bunch of offices inside.
At this point, questionable - sure, but not throwing red flags quite yet.
Then I started looking into both companies: who runs these companies, anyway?
I googled Transhare Corporation and got a company out of Colorado, so I went to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and searched for them there.
Sure enough, Transhare Corporation is a Colorado corporation with their principle place of business established at the Clearwater, Florida address given above.
Knowing that the Transhare Corporation that Canbiola reported hiring and the Colorado company that came up on Google we’re the same, I called the phone number that came up on Google. I called it at midnight, I called it at 7am, I called it at 10am, and I called it at 2:30pm. Every single time, it went straight to a voicemail. No ring, just voicemail. I did this over a three-day period, calling around the same times. Nobody ever answered the phones. What I did hear though, was a voicemail box for a ‘Kim Whiteside.’
So, I googled “Kim Whiteside Transhare Corporation.” The very first thing that came up was a LinkedIn profile for a Kim Whiteside - Operations Associate at ISLAND STOCK TRANSFER. Everything else that came up was for a Kim Whiteside and her association with Island Stock Transfer.
Now, I don’t know how many Kim Whitesides there are in the world, but I find it odd that there could be a Kim Whiteside working as a supervisor at the company Canbiola just fired, and also a Kim Whiteside working at the new company they just hired - which happens to be based out of the same town, in the same state, in the same building, in the very next office over.
Instead, I think Canbiola tried to distance itself from a known fraudster and a company with a terrible reputation publicly, but wanted to maintain their business relationship with the same fraudsters and same shady company privately.
What’s worse, is that they fired known fraudsters and a company charged with operating and selling securities for sham companies, but then they hired what can only be the same fraudsters who are operating what seems like another sham company!
If that’s the case, which it looks like it is, that’s a hard stop for me. The truth is, OTC companies have bad reputations by virtue of being listed on OTC exchanges. When they engage in highly questionable business practices, it gives credence to those negative suspicions. Even when otherwise straight-laced companies get suspected of shady things, it almost always ends badly for investors.
For example, when CV Sciences was accused of withholding material information from investors last year, although they were probably in the clear, their stock tanked from $9 to $3 in a few days. The following weeks brought an onslaught of litigation and investigations.
I don’t want to be on the losing side of Canbiola if something like this - or worse - gets out.
Will Canbiola ever hit $1.00, or even $.40, who knows? With their now “secret” association with known fraudsters, I think the possibilities are much slimmer.
For everyone who takes the time to read this board, take this information for what it’s worth. Follow my trail, perform the searches yourself. Re-read the 10-K. The information is available, and maybe it’ll help you in your decision-making process before you buy/sell Canbiola in the future.
Although this is really not the best news, I hope it’s beneficial to some!
Good luck to everyone!
