As Tom Winnifrith, the self appointed Sheriff of AIM, prepares to expose a 'BB moron' apparently being paid to promote a company, it seems a good time to ask ourselves: is TW a massive hypocrite who himself promotes shares for his OWN financial gain? 🤔 (mega thread)
TW rails against Vox and Proactive for paid for and 'soft' interviews with CEOs. However Shareprophets has recently been sponsored by @OpenOrphan. This included an interview (episode 8) and weekly 'in show endorsement' from The Sheriff.
It's perhaps no surprise that Open Orphan were one of Tom's three big tips of 2020. And even less of a surprise that TW is a shareholder who was "involved in Open Orphan pre RTO". Conflicted? Self interested? Hyprocritical? 🤔 You be the judge.
Then there's Big Sofa. Tom's second of his three big share tips for 2020. Oh, and one of his top 3 for 2019. And he's tipped them to his readers repeatedly for years since buying in to the IPO in December 2016. They might not be 'paying' him but he's undoubtedly ramping them. 
Subscribers who took Tom's "buy Big Sofa" advice will be wishing they had spent their 5.99 a month on something else as shares crashed from over 20p to today's price of around 4p . There are too many examples to share them all but classic #BST ramps include ...
July 2017 Big Sofa: "BUY GREEDILY" (!) up to 25p share price. At the time shares were around 19p. Target price apparently of 50p plus.
By September TW had upped his target to 60p.
By September TW had upped his target to 60p.
This continued in 2018. "The contract wins arrive!" Strong buy!
"IPSOS buys stake - why 55p is plausible".
Meanwhile in 2018 the share price crashed from 15p to 10p to around 3p at the end of the year.
>80% down but the Sheriff tipped it AGAIN to subscribers for 2019.
"IPSOS buys stake - why 55p is plausible".
Meanwhile in 2018 the share price crashed from 15p to 10p to around 3p at the end of the year.
>80% down but the Sheriff tipped it AGAIN to subscribers for 2019.
2019 saw not one but two placings for BST. Being a shareholder, when TW got wind of them it was with a heavy heart that he 'Winni-leaked' the placings in advance, as he does with other companies. A man of principle, he had to, to avoid bias. Er, except he didnt 😂 But why? 🤔
In fact TW became 'an insider' and bought more shares (at a discount you would assume). His reporting of both placings was dripping with self interest. One can only speculate its because he was by now balls deep in Big Sofa shares and sitting on a hefty loss. "BUY - I HAVE!" 🤠
TW couldn't resist getting the Big Sofa CEO on to Shareprophets for what you can imagine was a (cough) 'hard hitting' interview in October.
TW points out that Big Sofa didnt pay for the interview. He just thought it was "an interesting story" for listeners. How kind. Nothing to do with 'The Sheriff' holding a load of BST shares that he's now C£40,000 down on. Definitely no self interest there 🤔
Tough questions asked to Big Sofa's CEO included: "If you're increasing the amount of automation instead of human input, should I assume the gross margin's only going to go one way?" 🍾
And: "One would assume that with those relatively high and hopefully increasing gross margins, once you reach that point of break-even you could see a pretty decent ramp up in profitability?" 🤗
The same podcast featured Adam Reynolds talking about Optibiotix and 4 other companies. Co-incidentally OPTI was TW's 3rd of three big tips of the year for 2020. Shareprophets is swamped in positive Optibiotix news stories for the smallest reasons.But why, on a bear site? 🤔
Winnifrith has held and been tipping Optibiotix since 2016. It peaked around 90p in 2016, around 125p in 2018 and today sits at around 50p. Some may have made money if they sold at the right time, many will have lost a lot. Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.
What it does seem to show is Winnifrith ramping shares he owns in the guise of 'journalism'. And yes, people are actually paying money to read and listen to this.
And back to Adam Reynolds of Optibiotix & others? Winnifrith also bas held shares & published articles and buy recommendations for other companies Adam is associated with. You start to wonder why this is. Others have questioned this too in logs and on BBs.
Concepta, for example (covered same podcast as Big Sofa). Covered repeatedly as far back as 2016. Strong buys. TW said "shares are 16-17p but IMHO should be closer to 30p". The crash and burn 2020 price: 1.3p.
Yourgene (YGEN) again the Adam Reynolds connection. Buy tips. TW took an early position in it. Sosander another. I could go on. But you get the gist of it. There seems to be a clear connection.
So TW seems to invest in Reynolds linked companies at an early stage. Tip them repeatedly. Not leak placings. Be made an insider. And generally keeps providing positive coverage tips to some that are absolute dogs again and again. What's going on? 🤔
These are just a few small obvious examples. No doubt the tip of the iceberg. But enough to get a sense that something is rotten. Yes, ramping is bad. Ramping yourself and then attacking other rampers under the guise of journalism is double bad.
Back to the original question. It was "Is Tom Winnifrith a massive hypocrite who promotes shares for his own financial gain?".
Well why IS it he seems to treat companies that he is invested in SO differently?
As to the answer, well you be the judge - what do you think? 🤔
Well why IS it he seems to treat companies that he is invested in SO differently?
As to the answer, well you be the judge - what do you think? 🤔
