Timminco Again

The last time I wrote in this blog about Timminco, the Toronto, Canada-based silicon-processing concern, was late August of this year. The stock price was around C$15 at that time.

The price has slipped to $2.75 since.

The reason for returning to the subject, though, isn't that slide in itself. It is morethat the company has removed a positive report on its technology from its website. The report was called the "Photon Consulting Operational Review," and it purported to review Timminco's production of materials used in the manufacture of low-cost solar cells.

The review came under fire as soon as it was issued, back in the spring, i.e. back when the stock price was C$24.90! Now Timminco seems to be admitting that its critics had a point. In corporate-speak, it "believes that some of the material factors or assumptions originally used to develop the forward-looking information in the Photon Report, including in respect of revenues, production volumes and costs, may no longer be valid."

Here, as in many other instances, the short sellers of a stock aren't nasty manipulators throwing dirt at a well run company. There has surely been short interest in Timminco, but the shorts in these situations come out looking like detectives who ferreted out valuable information, thereby making themselves a profit while performing a public service.

Don't you love it when things work out?