DENVER, June 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Farmland
Partners Inc. (NYSE: FPI) ("FPI" or the "Company") today announced
the successful resolution of its litigation against Quinton Mathews, the previously anonymous author
of an attack published on the financial website "Seeking Alpha" on
July 11, 2018 as part of a "short and
distort" scheme targeting FPI, management and its
stockholders. As Mr. Mathews acknowledged publicly
(https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/47800059-rota-fortunae/5605955-mathews-settlement-press-release),
the July 2018 Article was full of
false statements that drove down FPI's stock price, allowing Mr.
Mathews and his clients, including the hedge fund who focused his
attention on FPI, to profit when their short positions in FPI's
stock gained value in the wake of the defamatory article's
publication.
Through this settlement, Mr. Mathews has agreed to pay to the
Company a multiple of the profits he made when his defamatory
"article" artificially drove the price of FPI stock down 39% on the
day of publication, enabling him, his clients, and his
co-conspirators to profit from the short positions they established
in advance of the article's publication. As explained below, FPI
continues to pursue its claims in Texas federal court against the hedge fund
with which Mr. Mathews collaborated, and the Company will continue
to vigorously defend the baseless lawsuits filed immediately after
the article was published that piggybacked on statements Mr.
Mathews now acknowledges were false.
Mr. Mathews—who published the article under the pseudonym "Rota
Fortunae" and only revealed his true name and the names of his
profiting clients after a court compelled him to do so last
year—has now acknowledged the defamatory statements contained in
his article were false, including unfounded statements that FPI
manipulated its publicly filed financial statements, misstated cash
flows and ability to cover its dividend, and failed to properly
disclose purported related party transactions in the company's
audited financial statements. Mr. Mathews also acknowledges the
falsity of the article's baseless headline claiming FPI faced a
threat of insolvency.
"With a stock price now more than double the closing price on
July 11, 2018, it is clear investors
already recognize that the Company was the victim of a short and
distort scheme," FPI CEO Paul
Pittman explained. Pittman continued: "The outrageous acts
of Mr. Mathews and his co-conspirators, together with the blind and
misguided trust Plaintiffs' lawyers placed on Mr. Mathews'
statements, have damaged innocent shareholders. We intend to
continue to vigorously seek to right this wrong. Plaintiffs
who filed a lawsuit against FPI based on Mr. Mathews' statements
should acknowledge the falsity of the statements and rethink the
ethics of continuing their cases, and move on from their frivolous
pursuit of FPI stockholders' money."
The money Mr. Mathews will return to FPI includes not only the
profits he made through his trading, but also the profits realized
by his business partner, Keith
Dilling, and his father, who placed similar bets against
FPI's stock in advance of the article's publication. Critically,
the Company remains free to continue to pursue its claims against
the hedge fund that focused Mr. Mathews' attention on FPI.
The fund—which Mr. Mathews admits paid him more than $100,000 in 2018 alone for his work on FPI and
other companies—collaborated with Mr. Mathews for months prior to
the release of the hit piece on FPI after working with him on
research into other companies Mr. Mathews attacked via Seeking
Alpha, and furthered the scheme against FPI by retweeting false and
defamatory statements to amplify the impact of that attack. FPI's
claims against the hedge fund are currently pending in Texas federal court.
The Company appreciates the support expressed by many other
companies who have been victims of similar attacks from Mr. Mathews
and others like him, and of the many investors who stuck with the
Company in the face of the short and distort attack. While the
Company waits for the relevant government agencies to take the
necessary steps to meaningfully protect companies like FPI from
these kinds of attacks, FPI will continue to protect itself and its
stockholders by pursuing further restoration of its reputation and
recovery of ill-gotten gains from the hedge fund that worked with
Mr. Mathews for years, and any others who may have wrongfully
profited from the artificial decline in FPI's share price caused by
the false and misleading attack on the Company. In addition,
the Company will consider all appropriate relief against those who
continue to prosecute shareholder claims against the Company where
such claims are based on statements by Mr. Mathews that have now
been retracted and admitted to be false by their author.
About Farmland Partners Inc.
Farmland Partners Inc.
is an internally managed real estate company that owns and seeks to
acquire high-quality North American farmland and makes loans to
farmers secured by farm real estate. As of the date of this
release, the Company owns approximately 157,000 acres in 16 states,
including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North
Carolina, South Carolina,
South Dakota and Virginia. We have approximately 26 crop types
and over 100 tenants. The Company elected to be taxed as a real
estate investment trust, or REIT, for U.S. federal income tax
purposes, commencing with the taxable year ended December 31, 2014. Additional information:
www.farmlandpartners.com or (720) 452-3100.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal
securities laws, including, without limitation, statements with
respect to pending litigation. Forward-looking statements generally
can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as
"may," "should," "could," "would," "predicts," "potential,"
"continue," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans,"
"believes," "estimates" or similar expressions or their negatives,
as well as statements in future tense. Although the Company
believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking
statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, beliefs and
expectations, such forward-looking statements are not predictions
of future events or guarantees of future performance and our actual
results could differ materially from those set forth in the
forward-looking statements. For a description of certain of such
factors see the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and the Company's other
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any
forward-looking information presented herein is made only as of the
date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake any
obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to
reflect changes in assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated
events, or otherwise.
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SOURCE Farmland Partners Inc.