400 days ago
We bears, well all of us apart from Simon Cawkwell, aka Evil Knievil, have been ready to celebrate the demise of loan shark Amigo (AMGO) for so, so long. Today comes that ouzo moment, Amigo (AMGO) itself admitting that shareholders will lose everything. It is a zero. It is official.
897 days ago
‘The best time to kick a man is when he is down’ is a quote from my friend the bear raider Simon Cawkwell, aka Evil Knievil. It is not a reference to individuals who have fallen on bad times for Cawkwell is, sometimes, not that uncharitable, but to shares in companies hitting new lows.
1136 days ago
Shares in loan shark Amigo (AMGO) are down by 12% today to 12p on what appears to be, well what most certainly is, a regulatory setback. But one loyal shareholder, the infamous short seller Simon Cawkwell, aka Evil Knievil, is not deterred and tells me that the shares will still hit 20p and could even go to 30p. The setback first:
1189 days ago
Wine Merchants across the UK are, according to the EU’s fave PR mouthpiece the Financial Times, having to add £1.50 to each bottle of wine imported from the EU as a result of Brexit. Natch the poodles on the pink paper tell their rapidly declining number of readers that this is another disaster caused by Brexit. That fecker Farage and we dirty 17.4 million dirty, smelly, stupid xenophobes in the sticks have another crime to account for. But hang on?
2060 days ago
George Cawkwell is the greatest living scholar on the subject of ancient Greece. His son, my friend, the philistine Simon, aka Evil Knievil. refuses to come to the Hellenic Republic on the grounds that the wine is all awful. He is wrong and I intend to prove it to him and lure him out here to open up his mind. My father attended George's lectures I must educate Simon.
2779 days ago
Not a lot of people know this but the middle name of Simon Cawkwell, aka Evil Knievil, is "Modesty". He is thus one of many people who has come up with a helpful suggestion on what to name my son born today - thank you to all of you for your good wishes. In today's podcast I look at Avanti Communications (AVN), Rosslyn Data Technologies (RDT), Levrett (LVRT) and Progility (PGY). I should get some sleep after being up all night but it is a very exciting day for us here. I will be back with a longer bearcast over the weekend.
2931 days ago
"Nomad Strand Hanson, Broker Mirabaud, mug punter Evil Knievil, aka Simon Cawkwell, dodgy Russians Mediotor, IR ramper John Heilshorn, we have beaten them all, we have beaten them all!. Phorm PLC, can you hear me? Phorm PLC ... your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
3865 days ago
Like everyone else in the email address book of Simon Cawkwell, aka infamous bear raider Evil Knievil, I have today received an urgent message – it seems as if the fat man is in a spot of bother. It reads:
4113 days ago
When the markets are plunging you tend to read quite a bit about Evil Knievil in the press. Every graduate trainee journalist wants to know what the UK’s best known short seller has to say. When markets are rising as they are now, he tends to fade from view somewhat. Of course you can get the greatest shorting opportunities when folks lose sense of reality in a bull market. But you can also do your conkers as folks can stay mad and shares can defy gravity for quite a while. So if you have not heard from the Great Bear for a while, fear not he will be back.
Evil Knievil acquired that moniker during his shorting of Maxwell Communications. The great socialist newspaper proprietor tried to silence his critics with lawyers letters (something all liars attempt) and so when sending out faxes to explain to dumb City analysts why the sums did not add up Cawkwell signed off as Evil Knievel. The publisher of his first book did not wish to get into trouble with the motorbike rider so made that Knievil. It stuck. Call up Simon Cawkwell and you just ask for Evil.
Like myself Cawkwell’s father was an academic. A distinguished one to boot. George Cawkwell was also an international sportsman (Scotland, rugby). His 23 stone son is no sportsman and no academic – he failed to get into Cambridge. That is not to say that he is not clever, just that he was never suited to the world of academia. Cawkwell trained as an accountant instead.
Although he still practices, for many years he has made a living from the markets. His ruin (other than eating and drinking far too much) is that he is a self-confessed gambler
4131 days ago
Lucian Miers often finds himself overshadowed by the larger than life figure that is Evil Knievil (Simon Cawkwell). The two men sometimes share ideas and bear raids but on other occasions they disagree. They are very much their “own men.” I sense that perhaps because of his casual and light hearted approach to life, folks underestimate Lucian. That is a mistake.
Known as East London’s most feared short seller, Lucian is about as much of a cockney as myself or Prince Charles. His family used to own rather large amounts of real estate in the area around Upton Park and hence “the Bard of the Boleyn” is a devoted West Ham supporter. But he is (like Cawkwell) quite a posh public school educated fellow. And like Cawkwell he did not quite make it passed the final interview when it came to applying to Oxford. That is not to say that Lucian is not very clever, just that he is perhaps not a true academic.
The highlight of Miers career as a stockbroker was his short selling of Pan Andean Resources as the world and his wife bought the stock on the back of hopes (and puff pieces in the Daily Mail) for South American drilling success, Miers took the trouble to call the site of the well on the phone to be told that it was dry and that the directors were at that stage flying back to Ireland.
