Strategic Mining Corp. Achieves $5 Million Reserve Equity Financingfrom AGS Capital Group
CHEYENNE, WY, May 24, 2012 (GlobeNewswire) – Strategic Mining Corp (OTCBB: SMNG) announced it has achieved a $5,000,000 Reserve Equity Financing (“REF”) from AGS Capital Group, LLC, a U.S. based specialist investor group, to fund general company operations and gold exploration work on the Siguiri property in Guinea.
The REF is a long-term strategic financing partnership that places Strategic Mining Corp. in control of how and when we raise equity, minimizing any potential dilution or disruption to our capital structure. Under the REF, Strategic Mining Corp. has discretion to periodically sell common shares when the prices are attractive to the Company. The Company decides when the funds are raised and how the funds are utilized. Having AGS Capital Group as a long-term partner reduces financing uncertainty so that we can better focus on achieving our business objectives for precious metals exploration and eventual mine production.
Douglas C. Peters, President and CEO of Strategic Mining Corp., stated “We are pleased to be able to access this level of funding through a financial vehicle like the REF and a key financial partner. Strategic Mining can make use of such consistent funding to advance exploration efforts for our gold properties, particularly for the Siguiri property in Guinea where funding is needed to complete assessment of the overall property for both placer and hard rock resources and move toward development and production of the placer gold resources already identified by past efforts.”
“AGS sees Strategic Mining as an exploration company that has the potential for considerable growth given their position in the highly active gold fields of Guinea and attempts at breaking into Southeast Asian gold exploration as well. We welcome the opportunity to aid Strategic Mining in these efforts”, stated Allen Silberstein, Chief Investment Officer of AGS Capital Group.
INVESTOR ALERTS
September 17, 2012
The Company received verbal notice this morning from the SEC that trading in our stock was being suspended for 10 business days (Sept. 17-Sept. 28, 2012, inclusive). The SEC has stated that the suspension is due to questions about “…the adequacy and accuracy of press releases concerning the company’s operations.” However, we have not yet been notified what press release or releases may be the base cause of the questions. We are working to follow up with the SEC and determine both the cause of the suspension and how SMC can satisfy the SEC’s questions and resume normal trading after September 28. http://www.strategicminingcorp.com/
Symons and family ordered to pay $34.2 million in fraud case
A federal judge has ordered a high-profile businessman and the Indianapolis companies he operated with family members to pay $34.2 million relating to the fraudulent transfer of assets in a business sale.
But the judge on Nov. 20 granted the men and the companies a temporary reprieve from paying the judgment.
Alan Symons, his brother Douglas Symons and their father G. Gordon Symons, along with several of their holdings, including IGF Insurance Co. and Symons International Group Inc., are targets of a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based Continental Casualty Co.
Continental Casualty is prevented from collecting the judgment until a bankruptcy involving one of the companies named in the suit is resolved. The Symons' lawyer, Arend Abel of Indianapolis-based Cohen & Malad LLP, also has filed an appeal requesting the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago review the October decision from U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young in Indianapolis.
Both Alan Symons and Abel declined to comment on the case, saying the case remains active.
Besides finding the men liable for fraud, the October judgment paints a picture of them using their companies as personal banks, taking out loans and collecting millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses, despite the “precarious financial condition” of those companies and the large debt they owed.
Alan Symons is well known in the local business community and has been named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. He is a founder of Indianapolis-based AGS Capital LLC. With $25 million under management, AGS ranked 7th among Indiana venture capital firms in IBJ’s latest listing.
Symons started AGS after stepping aside in 2002 as CEO of Indianapolis-based Goran Capital Inc. and as vice chairman of subsidiary Symons International Group. Both companies are named as defendants in the lawsuit filed by Chicago-based Continental Casualty Co.
The legal wrangling began three years after another subsidiary, IGF Insurance, in 1998 bought two lines of crop insurance from Continental Casualty using a performance-based formula in which the two entities shared the profits of the combined businesses.
IGF began experiencing financial difficulties, and in 2001 Continental Casualty exercised its right to receive full payment of the purchase price. IGF was unable to pay Continental Casualty the debt it owed, according to court documents. Facing severe financial distress, IGF sold its crop insurance business to Acceptance Insurance Companies Inc. in May 2001 for $40.5 million.
The Symons chartered a private jet that was used while that sale was being negotiated and transferred nearly $1 million from IGF to pay for the plane and legal fees associated with the sale, the judge’s order said.
In June 2001, IGF sued Continental Casualty, claiming breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. Continental Casualty then counter-sued IGF, its affiliates and members of the Symons family, saying they fraudulently transferred assets.
In March 2007, the federal court granted Continental Casualty’s motion to dismiss the suit brought by IGF and heard Continental’s counterclaim in November 2008 and again in January of this year.
The judge ruled in October that IGF and the other defendants fraudulently transferred assets relating to the sale agreement with Continental Casualty.
“As the controlling shareholders of [their companies] and the recipients of improper post-transaction benefits, Alan, Doug and Gordon Symons were the beneficiaries of the gains in avoiding the large debt to [Continental Casualty],” Young wrote in his judgment.
The judge also said the three Symons fraudulently represented IGF’s financial condition to regulatory agencies and comingled the assets and affairs of their businesses.
“The corporate formalities maintained by [the Symons’ companies], such as holding annual shareholder meetings, holding annual board of directors meetings, keeping minutes of those meetings, and occasionally issuing board resolutions of those meetings, are entirely ‘cosmetic,’” he said in his judgment.
The continuing liquidation of Superior Insurance Co., one of the Symons' companies named in the complaint by Continental Casualty, prompted the judge to delay the judgment.
This is not the first time Alan Symons has been the target of a lawsuit. In 2007, a Marion Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering a company controlled by Symons to return computer files and other information allegedly taken from a Fishers competitor.
The competitor, Product Action International LLC, claimed in a lawsuit that Symons’ company, Fast Tek Group LLC, used Product Action’s business blueprint to build a similar company. Both firms identify parts defects for manufacturers.
Symons deployed an interesting strategy to sell the company. He pushed Fast Tek into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection—a move that cleared the way for a suitor to buy the assets without being saddled with the liabilities, including the half-million dollars in legal fees Product Action racked up during the court battle.
I find it odd, however, that Alan Symons company, AGS Capital LLC was registered in Indiana in 2002 and has its registered address the same address that is on its website. Furthermore, a property search for Marion county, Indiana reveals that the property owner is Superior Metal Technologies, exactly as is stated on AGS Capital LLC's website. They may indeed have committed fraud, but at least they appear to actually exist.
AGS Capital Group, on the other hand, was registered in 2009 with nearly the SAME name as Symons company. That might be coincidental: Allen G? Silberstein, but perhaps not.
AGS Capital Group is registered in NY, but NOT at any of the addresses associated with AGS Capital Group nor even with any of the addresses I have so far found for Allen Silberstein. In fact, the registered address is a house that appears to be for sale…hmmm….
AGS CAPITAL GROUP, LLC 3 BRITTANY OAKS CLIFTON PARK, NEW YORK, 12065
Furthermore, if you google 'AGS Capital Group' you'll find an impressive number of such financing agreements made just this year. There is a whole lot of money being guaranteed by an entity whose actual location seems to be either a house for sale or a virtual office somewhere. One would think they could afford an real office if they really have that much money with which to buy all these shares.
I mean, to me, it's almost as if they don't expect any of these entities to actually need any of this capital.
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