M & A Rainmaker

IT services and solutions provider 365iT appoints Pieter Hooft as non-executive director

Appointment of Non-Executive Director

Basingstoke 21st December 2009: 365 iT plc, the IT services and solutions provider, is very pleased to announce the appointment of Pieter Hooft as a non-executive Director of the
Company.
Pieter Hooft is currently Managing Director of UK Investments for LMS Capital plc, the LSE listed international investment group. He has over 15 years’ investment experience in
management buyouts and development capital in the UK and across Europe.
Commenting on this appointment, Peter MacLean, 365 iT’s
chairman and chief executive, said: “I am delighted to
welcome Pieter to the Board. He has extensive experience of
helping companies achieve rapid and profitable growth and I
look forward to his contribution to the Board and to his
expertise and support for the continued development of the
Group.”
Pieter previously worked at Apax Partners and JPMorgan
Partners. Since joining LMS Capital in November 2006, Pieter has joined the boards of
Updata Infrastructure Holdings Ltd, Entuity Ltd, Kizoom Ltd, ITS Engineered Systems Inc and
First Index Inc.
Pieter is a Dutch national and is fluent in French and German. He was educated in The
Netherlands and at HEC Paris.

Notes to the Editor
365 iT plc was founded in 2005 and now employs over 85 people. Through its wholly owned
subsidiaries (365 iTechnology Ltd, 5i Ltd and 7 Global Group Ltd), the group provides an extensive
range of IT services and solutions that address the nine strategic functional areas in IT operations and
management: IT Managed Services, Unified Communications, Business Continuity, Data Backup, IT
Security, Virtualisation, Networks, Storage Solutions and Infrastructure solutions.
Enquiries:
Stephen Bean
Marketing-Alliance,
Tel: +44 (0) 7747 100000
www.365iTechnology.com

The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704007804574575481948503664.html

and Harry from Laidlaw & Co.

http://laidlawholdingsplc.wordpress.com/

are saying that Berkshire Hathaway are going to do a stock split later this month.

Could be a safe investment bet ??

Westernfield Holdings Wind Turbine drivetrain testing

Strange title for a blog eh ????

Well there is a reason and the reason is because I have decided to admit that I fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book the other day and bought stock from a rogue trader – otherwise known as a ” Boiler Room Scam “.

You can get more information on ” Boiler Room Scams ” here

http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/ECD/Fraud/boilerroom.htm

and if you Google it.

Here’s a couple of useful blogs to look at in relation to Westernfield Holdings and other interesting companies:

http://stumbleforward.com/2009/04/09/readers-story-milton-hayward-scam-ripping-off-people/comment-page-1/#comment-5560

http://migger.net/2007/05/31/unicorn-ventures-advarsel/ ( starts off in Danish but there are lots of comments in English so you will get the drift pretty quick ).

http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2007/08/31/arnaque-boursiere-artemis/ ( starts off in French but lots of English later )

http://www.upvery.com/2265-macmillan-frasier.html

and the FSA has a useful list here:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/overseas.shtml

You can bet that I will be writing more about this but for the moment I am ” keeping my powder dry ” as I have set the dogs onto some of these guys. They are going to find out that they are pretty big, nasty, dogs in the near future 🙂

The thing that caught me out here is that they came with a reference from someone that I knew which I guess means that thier information and data originally came from a legitimate broker.

I guess that the other couple of things that caught me out were that it was in area of business that I thought was pretty hot ( electric cars ) and from a part of the world that I regard as high growth ( Far East and China ) and a company that had been invested in by Warren Buffett ( everyone’s investing hero ?? ) and was presented to me by a very educated and competent  ( sounding ) lady.

As I say there will be much more on this but there was something that quite intrigued me in relation to the way that these boiler rooms promoted themselves on the Internet and the way that they used it. They use some of the promotional techniques that we have talked about here.

Lets Google a couple of companies:

Westernfield Holdings – http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=westernfield+holdings&meta=&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&aq=f&oq=

Anderson Munro – http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=anderson+munro&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Macmillan Frasier – http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1R2ADBR_en&q=macmillan+frasier&meta=&aq=f&oq=

So, firstly someone ( we do have some idea who ) is generating plausable sounding ( ? ) company names and accompanying websites. Then they need to fill the website with appropriate content, promote the website ( get it ranking as high as possible in Google ) and create some semblence of history and credibility around the company.

This is done using free press release websites and these may be further promoted using Digg or some other similar site.

Unfortunately for the people who are creating these companies and websites people are talking ( all around the world and in many different languages – some reading eg French or Danish websites and then commenting in English ) on the Internet and posting what they know. This means that in some cases victims comments are managing to get onto the front page of Google with warnings about them.

Blog and forum websites that contain the warnings are ranking as high if not higher than the companies own website and the various press releases.

Of course there is a timelag but as the victims get quicker at spotting the scams and sharper at posting them with relevant keywords then the timelag is reduced.

People have made the point that the websites are not very old ( They have done a ” whois ” on the websites like this

http://whois.domaintools.com/makeb.net

and found out who constructed them and when ) and also that the Press Releases only start from certain dates and again are not very old.

Also, interestingly, some of them are still being posted about – probably in an effort to drive out the warning posts and replace them with PR’s.

These posts will tell you what the next ” stock theme ” that they are going to be telephone calling about is going to be.

Westernfield Holdings were still posting as recently as November 25th 2009 on the subject of thier alleged investment of $25 Million into a wind turbine drivetrain testing centre. Hence the title of this blog 😉

Of course Wind Turbines are a very topical subject and the drivetrains are an element which is costly and high maintenance so the area itself is somewhat legitimate.

As I said there will be more and I am hoping to get some comment from some of the companies mentioned 🙂