It’s the 2011 Penny Sleuth awards!

(These article first appeared in Penny Sleuth in December 2011. Penny Sleuth is an unregulated free e-letter written by Tom Bulford and published by MoneyWeek Limited)

It’s time for the Penny Sleuth Annual Awards…

After last year’s glittering ceremony held in a five star London hotel, straitened economic times saw this year’s event held in The Olde Dog and Duck.

Notwithstanding these humble surroundings, all the shakers and movers of the penny share world were present, desperate to receive a sprinkling of Red Hot stardust. After partaking of sausage and mash, washed down with warm beer, the Penny Sleuth himself took to the podium. The audience hushed as he delivered these prestigious awards…

1)The ‘ne’er draw breath’ award for non-stop talking

As always, this was a keenly contested category. Nominees included Paul Clegg of ACCSYS TECHNOLOGIES (AIM: AXS) and David Lenigas of LONRHO (LSE: LONR). In second place after a 60 minute, uninterrupted, tour de force on the merits of GEMFIELDS (AIM: GEM) was its chief executive Ian Harebottle. But for managing to recount his whole life story over lunch, while a plate of ham, egg and chips grew cold on the table before him, the award this year goes to John French, chairman of SUTHERLAND HEALTH (PLUS: SHGP).

2) The Weight Watchers award for deal making

Making his way to the stage to receive this award was a waif-like figure, a shadow of his former self. After spending months flying between the UK, Germany, Russia and India without finding the time to eat slim-line, Scott Maguire has finally – well, almost finally – put together a remarkable series of deals that have transformed the future of the company formerly known as LIPOXEN and now XENETIC BIOSCIENCES (AIM: XEN). Have an extra mince pie to celebrate, Scott!

3) Best research note of the year award

While small cap brokers have been dropping like flies, the art of writing a really good research note is not quite dead. I have seen some good stuff this year from Edison Research, Equity Development and Allenby Capital. But for really thorough and interesting work on WILDHORSE ENERGY (AIM: WHE) and POWERHOUSE ENERGY (AIM: PHE), I am splitting the prize this year between Liberum Capital and Merchant Securities – keep up the good work, guys!

4) The Penny Sleuth ‘dunce’s cap’ for the worst use of English

This goes to payments provider EARTHPORT (AIM:EPO) which, not content with using ‘passport’ as a verb has also introduced another – to ‘on-board’.

‘The Banking Network Team’, Earthport told us in November, “focuses solely on the on-boarding and management of relationships with the many banking partnerships Earthport engages to deliver services globally”.

Pausing after a brief shudder at this mangling of his native language, the Penny Sleuth downed a restorative brandy and bravely continued.

5) The Penny Sleuth ‘kiss of death’

Last year, Penny Sleuth commended Dr Drew Nelson for his skilful leadership of IQE (AIM: IQE) – since then the share price has lost 60% of its value. So upon hearing his name called out, the recipient of this year’s award was hauled away from the exit by others, fearful that this award might come their way. Eventually and with a nervous smile, Dr Mike Love, who this year has engineered a profitable exit for CLEARSTREAM TECHNOLOGIES (AIM: CTN) while successfully steering DILLISTONE (AIM: DSG) and SCISYS (AIM: SSY) through difficult times, was prevailed upon to receive the prize.

6) The ‘hope springs eternal’ award

Always hotly contested by the many companies that have promised much but failed to deliver, the front runners this year included LOMBARD MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES (AIM: LMT), IMAGE SCAN HOLDINGS (AIM: IGE), MEDIWATCH (AIM: MDW) and CORAC (AIM: CRA). But the prize went to MINOAN GROUP (AIM: MIN) which is still hoping to build a luxury leisure development in eastern Crete. If it ever gets built, who will be able to afford it?

7) The ‘off you go’ award for the young entrepreneur of the year

Nominees for this award, named after the phrase beloved of Sir Alan Sugar and Greg Wallace, were Alex Johnson of PLUS-listed WORLDWIDE NATURAL RESOURCES (PLUS: WNR), the team at LITEBULB (AIM: LBB) and Alex Halliday of SOCIALGO (AIM: SGO). But the winner is Daniel Betts, whose HUMMINGBIRD RESOURCES (AIM: HUM) has hacked its way through the Liberian jungle to find what just could become a serious gold mine.

8) The ‘have a nice day’ award for dismal customer service

Coming all the way from the USA to receive this award are representatives of Dell Computers. Clearly it’s not AIM-listed and is not a penny share – but it’s worthy of this award anyway. It took five appointments to effect a minor repair to my computer. This included bringing the wrong part; bringing the right part that did not fix the problem; bringing another part that was faulty; making an appointment but not turning up; before finally getting me up and running at the fifth attempt.

9) The ‘beyond the call of duty’ prize (restricted to PR staff)

This was awarded to a certain blonde PR girl who uttered the words I never thought I would hear… “Would you like to come upstairs?” Upon following her into a room on the second floor I was greeted by an Australian miner and a Russian geologist. Disappointing, or what?

By this juncture in the proceedings, so many tears of joy had been shed by the lucky prize-winners that representatives of the FSA leapt upon the damp and slippery stage and declared it hazardous to health and safety. Advising the assembled company to go home quietly and put their savings under the mattress, they turned off the lights and sent us all home for another year.

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Good investing,

 

Tom Bulford Editor, Red Hot Penny Shares

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(These article first appeared in Penny Sleuth in December 2011. Penny Sleuth is an unregulated free e-letter written by Tom Bulford and published by MoneyWeek Limited)