Email from the Bloomberg writer below: Take it however you want but thought I should share...
from CHRISTOPHER DONVILLE, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM: <cjdonville@bloomberg.net>
to me
date Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 1:40 PM
subject (BN) Billionaire Prokhorov Denies Bid for Miner Supatcha
mailed-by bloomberg.net
hide details 1:40 PM (55 minutes ago)
(my name deleted),
The Russian email is legit. See the attached story.
Chris
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Billionaire Prokhorov Denies Bid for Miner Supatcha (Update1)
2010-12-14 18:26:04.51 GMT
(Updates attempts to contact Supatcha in fifth paragraph.)
By Christopher Donville
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Mikhail Prokhorov, the second-
richest Russian, denied any association with Supatcha Resources
Inc. and an unsolicited bid for the Denver-based gold explorer.
“Mikhail Prokhorov categorically denies any involvement
with Supatcha,” Onexim Group, a Moscow-based holding company
owned by Prokhorov, said today in an e-mailed statement. Igor
Petrov, an Onexim spokesman, confirmed the release. A Dec. 10
statement from Supatcha citing Prokhorov’s participation in the
takeover bid is “completely false,” it said.
The shares fell as much as 41 percent. Supatcha was 5 cents
lower at 14 cents as of 12:23 p.m. in over-the-counter trading
in New York, valuing the company at $8.8 million.
Supatcha looks for gold deposits in Ukraine, according to
its website. It jumped 77 percent on Dec. 10 after reporting a
$1.75-a-share bid from OXM Group, a company it said is
controlled by Prokhorov. Supatcha yesterday said it got a second
unsolicited bid, this time for $2.50 a share, from a Moscow-
based company called JSC Rustamov Group. The stock slumped 73
percent yesterday.
A call to Supatcha’s office in Denver wasn’t answered. A
woman identifying herself as Lisa, who answered a call to the
investor-relations phone number listed on Supatcha’s website,
declined to comment, give her full name or the identity of her
employer.
A call to the Thunder Bay, Ontario, telephone number listed
by Suptacha on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s
website was answered by a woman who said the number was for a
company called Auto One Car Care and Service Centre. The woman
declined to give her name.
‘In the Dark’
Supatcha last month hired The Wall St Bulls Consultant
Group to raise investor awareness, said Brett Smith, a senior
partner at the Naples, Florida-incorporated investor-relations
services provider.
“Since then it just has been quite on the other end,”
Smith said in a telephone interview. He said he has communicated
with Supatcha executives only by e-mail.
“We are also in the dark about this company,” he said.
Forbes magazine this year ranked Prokhorov, 45, as Russia’s
second-richest man, with a $13.4 billion fortune. He is chief
executive officer of Russian gold producer OAO Polyus Gold and
owns the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Russia’s richest
man is OAO Novolipetsk Steel owner Vladimir Lisin.
For Related News and Information:
Supatcha shareholders: SAEI US <Equity> PHDC1 <GO>
M&A search: MA <GO>
Today’s top Russian news: TOP RUS <GO>
--With assistance from Torrey Clark and Ilya Khrennikov in
Moscow. Editors: Simon Casey, Steven Frank
To contact the reporter on this story:
Christopher Donville in Vancouver at +1-604-331-1310 or
cjdonville@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Simon Casey at +44-20-7673-2631 or scasey4@bloomberg.net
