More fun and games at Deo Petroleum, the cash shell which is looking for oil and gas investments.
Last week its shares jumped sharply, forcing the directors to put out a statement saying they knew of no reason for the rise, and there was no material information which was not in the market.
Today a post on a bulletin board included an announcement that the company had made a major discovery in the North Sea (this is an investment company, remember with cash as its only asset so far.) The contacts on the statement were genuine, but the date was 13 January.
The company was forced to issue another statement immediately, condemning the announcement as a fake, and repeating it had nothing new to report. Sources suggested a disgruntled investor may have bought Deo shares last week after their rise, and when they dropped back today, decided to do something about it by making a fictitious statement.
Fortunately the fake appears to have been rumbled at once. The Aim team have been told and are believed to be looking into the matter.
Whatever the case, investors in Deo have seen the company's shares drop 42% today to 2.875p. At their peak last week they touched 7.125p.
