THERE were a collection of very unimpressed punters in small-cap land following Bill Mobbs’ latest missive to the market.

Mobbs heads ITL, a self-styled “rapidly expanding” company in the health-care industry, specialising in medical devices and medical procedure packs.

Seven weeks ago, Mobbs unveiled an $8 million-plus placement of scrip at 52 cents.

The raising, so he declared, brought several leading fund managers onto the share register.

He went on to note that the money would help with the group’s continued expansion into Asia and that a manufacturing facility in Malaysia was being substantially upgraded in anticipation of further growth.

“We are delighted with our progress in Asia over the last couple of years and the fund-raising will allow us to scope to accelerate that,” he stated.

All well and good.

The market liked it and in the next few weeks the scrip was propelled to 62 cents.

But not that long after that high point, it started to slip away and by mid-May the shares were down to 48 cents.

That meant those leading fund managers had witnessed a 14 per cent drop in an overall market that was strong.

By last Tuesday, ITL shares were down to 38 cents, which meant the money men were looking if they were still on the scene at losses of nearly 27 per cent in less than two months. Too many losses like that and leading fund managers wouldn’t be leading fund managers.

Enter the stock exchange, which fired off a letter to Mobbs and co on Tuesday, asking whether any light could be thrown on the price deterioration.

The next day, ITL issued a market update that forecast sales of $34 million to $35 million for the current June year. Earnings were tipped to be between $1.9 million to $2.2 million.

“Revenue is expected to grow 10 per cent from the previous year’s performance of $31.3 million, however the performance of the company in the second half has been flat,” Mobbs told the exchange.

Punters who dug into the downgrade forecasts discovered that sales had fallen about 17 per cent in the current half.

Earnings were in even worse shape, with a forecast $300,000 figure or thereabouts for the current half, compared with $2.4 million for the previous corresponding period.

Not what fund managers wanted to hear, and the very next day ITL shares were given a decent hiding with the selling stick. They slid by up to 21 per cent, from 43 cents to 34 cents, closing at 37 cents.

On Friday, the shares closed at 35 cents and turnover for the two days was close enough to 5 per cent of the capital.

Long-term followers of ITL would undoubtedly have experienced deja vu.

Back in 2004, the scrip plunged from 76 cents to as low as 12.5 cents over 12 months after the company yep, you guessed it disappointed on the earnings front.

August 9, 2007 — Iowa Senator Charles Grassley said he intends to link his proposal to boost taxes on publicly traded buyout firms to a fix of the alternative minimum tax, a pairing that may make it harder for opponents of the measure to vote against it.

“This is going to come when we deal with the alternative minimum tax,” Grassley, a Republican, said in an interview yesterday. He said the bill deals with “issues of equity and fairness.”

The strategy would partner legislation to raise taxes on publicly traded partnerships such as The Blackstone Group to a measure shielding 23 million mostly middle-income households from an AMT increase this year. It’s a tactic that has worked in the past: last year Republicans successfully paired an AMT relief measure to an extension of a capital-gains tax cut that was opposed by Democrats.

Grassley, 73, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and the committee’s Democratic Chairman, Max Baucus of Montana, introduced the bill that would make buyout and hedge-fund firms that go public pay taxes as corporations at rates as high as 35 percent. Under the current system, only the partners in these firms pay taxes and they do so at the 15 percent capital-gains rate.

Last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said he intends to combine related legislation that would more than double the personal taxes for managers of private-equity firms and hedge funds with a measure curtailing the AMT.

Police in Angola shot dead two actors after mistaking them for armed robbers as they filmed a crime drama, the director said today.

Three more actors were wounded after officers opened fire at close range in a crime-ridden suburb of the capital, Luanda, before a crowd of onlookers who had been watched the filming, Radical Ribeiro said.

“We saw the [police] pick-up speeding towards us. It looked empty but then suddenly it stopped and people appeared on the back and without asking any questions they started shooting at everybody at close range,” Ribeiro told the AFP news agency.

“I don’t know how I escaped, I was just two metres away,” he said.

Ribeiro said the actors had been carrying firearms, but the weapons had not been loaded.

“I was stunned when I saw them falling down. They went on shooting until I shouted out: ‘Please don’t shoot, this is a movie.’”

The director told AFP the police then stopped shooting and sped away.

Ribiero said he had informed the local police about the filming before they began, but said the marksmen appeared to belong to an elite unit.

The police have not yet commented on the incident.