Quintis stock burns after hedge fund gatecrashes party with sport stars

Ricciardo was one of the high-profile brand ambassadors attending the launch of sandalwood producer Quintis on Wednesday evening, just hours after the ASX-listed company got hammered by a US hedge fund, Glaucus Research.

It was no coincidence. The hedge fund timed the release of a damaging research report - comparing Quintis to a Ponzi scheme - to coincide with the highly-publicised launch, which also featured cricketer Adam Gilchrist.

Gilchrist was a director of the company when it was still known as forestry management group TFS.

He is is now one of the company's brand ambassadors, promoting its reincarnation as wellness group Quintis, selling the virtues of the sandalwood - which has been used for thousands of years by Hindus and Buddhists.

"We believe that TFS (Quintis) will likely follow Timbercorp and Great Southern into ignominy and failure," said the report.

"We believe that once investors scrutinise TFS's misleading forecasts, dubious marketing materials and questionable customers, TFS will lose the confidence of the capital markets it requires to survive."

It sent the share price plunging for a second day in a row on Thursday - which is just what Glaucus wants.

It is short-selling Quintis, which means the hedge fund makes money from any fall in its share price. At its low point on Thursday the stock had fallen as much as 27 per cent in a matter of days - to a low of $1.055 on Thursday morning - in what would have been a very profitable venture for the unapologetic Glaucus.

The disclaimer at the end of Glaucus's report emphasises that the report and all statements it contains are "opinion" and "not statements of fact".

Quintis - which has billionaire Gerry Harvey among its investors - slammed the Glaucus report when queried about its share slump by the securities regulator.

"The note is a self-serving and biased note by a shorter of the stock in an attempt to drive TFS's share price down for their own financial gain," it said in the statement to the ASX.

"There are substantial and egregious inaccuracies littered throughout the note which could have been avoided had the note's author contacted the company."

Harvey has had worse things to say about short-sellers, who have targeted his retailer Harvey Norman.

"I think they should be banned ... [they have] huge incentive to go out and damage the price," he told investors at the retailer's shareholder meeting last November.

Gilchrist would not be pleased either if he still holds the 890,000 shares he owned when he was still a board member in 2014.

Smashing lunch

The plates stayed intact when the rugby league faithful got together over some dolmades at the hallowed Hellenic Club in Sydney on Thursday.

It was to honour Greek-Australians who have excelled in their contributions to the NRL.

Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis hosted the event, which also featured South Sydney Rabbitohs chairman Nick Pappas.

Despite the rumours, Souths shareholder Russell 'Zorba' Crowe was a no-show. So was its other shareholder James 'Spiros' Packer, who used to be on the Roosters board with Politis.

Net proceeds from all ticket sales will go towards The Hellenic Initiative (THI), a global not-for-profit organisation that works to assist Greece through crisis relief, entrepreneurship and economic development.

And who set up THI? That would be Darwin-born Dow Chemical boss Andrew Liveris.

He was appointed to head President Trump's manufacturing council in December with the promise of bringing manufacturing jobs back to America.

One month later Trump downgraded the "council" to an "initiative" with Liveris's role downgraded to one of the CEO plebs alongside GE's Jeff Immelt and Dell founder Michael Dell.

The surprise non-inclusion was our own billionaire with large US manufacturing operations, Anthony Pratt.

He is a good mate of Trump's VP, Michael Pence, and even won $450,000 betting on a Trump presidency.

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