Investors nervous as FMA prods New Talisman Gold boss' online forum comments

Wednesday, 8 July 2020

Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced a decision to decline an application to mine coal on conservation land at Te Kuha, near Westport. (Video first published in June 2018)

The Financial Markets Authority has received a complaint alleging the boss of an NZX-listed mining company attempted to manipulate shareholders by posting favourable comments about the business online.

Online sharemarket chatroom, Sharetrader Forum, banned accounts believed to be used by New Talisman Gold Mines chief executive Matt Hill, who was allegedly promoting the company without disclosing his relation to the business.

The administrator of the website, Vince Smith, said its security data showed “without a reasonable doubt” Hill had been commenting under the accounts “Bullish” and “Epithermal” since 2014.

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) said it was looking into the complaint, but would not comment further.

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NZX-listed New Talisman Gold Mines’ boss Matthew Geoffrey Hill has been accused of manipulating shareholderse anonymously online.

Sharetrader’s internal security information, seen by Stuff, showed the “Bullish” and “Epithermal” usernames matched emails sent by Hill to moderators of the Sharetrader website.

In a statement to the NZX on Monday, New Talisman Gold Mines told shareholders it was aware of the allegations against Hill.

”We understand that the allegations were made by an administrator on Sharetrader after [Hill] wrote to Sharetrader to complain and to request they investigate and consider removing malicious postings being published on the Sharetrader.co.nz site with respect to [Hill] personally and the company,” the company said.

”The company is investigating the content of the postings made on Sharetrader.co.nz that have been alleged by Sharetrader to have been made by the company CEO, to ascertain whether the content of those postings gives rise to concerns in respect of disclosure requirements.

“ The company, will not be commenting on this matter until the outcome of those enquiries are complete.”

New Talisman Gold Mines says it is aware of the allegations against chief executive Matt Hill.

Sharetrader’s rules state any employee, director, or officer of a listed NZX or ASX company cannot post any material or statements without clearly identifying that they work for the company and have a verified profile stating such.

Hill has been approached for comment.

Smith said moderators of the website received emails from Hill asking for other members’ personal details and IP addresses to take legal action against them, accusing the members of slandering the company.

Smith said he had never seen behaviour like Hill’s from a chief executive before.

A number of forum members have called for Hill to step down.

New Talisman biggest shareholder Hamish Brown said he had no comment to make until the FMA’s inquiry had been completed.

Brown held 11.5 per cent of shares in the company.

Brown said he was not a member of Sharetrader and only became one after he found out the FMA was investigating it.

A longtime shareholder of the company, who did not want to be named, said while he was not convinced Hill was behind the usernames, he was concerned about his investment.

“I think the jury’s still out… I hope Matt Hill isn’t the person behind this,” he said.

The investor said he did not trust allegations made on an online sharemarket chatroom.

The company’s share price traded at 0.7 cents a share.

Hill owned 1.6 per cent of the company’s shares.

Last year his salary was $306,000 about a 26 per cent drop from the previous year.

Hill has been chief executive of the New Talisman since 2012. He was appointed to the board as alternate director for Geoffrey Hill in 1999.