The suspended AltX company, Alliance Mining Corporation, has just released a SENS stating that it has resolved to apply to the High Court for liquidation as "...it became apparent to the directors that the Company will not be able to meet its obligations in the normal course of business."

The application is expected to be launched on or around 13 April 2010 (next week Tuesday) and, if successful, will close the book on what initially looked like a promising company...but then reportable irregularities suddenly popped up, it's CEO and FD resigned, the FD was involved in the African Dawn debacle...

A critical lesson from this story is that businesses aren't all numbers.  They are the people behind the numbers that either add to them or detract from them (or, in the extreme, misreport the numbers).  Manage your risk by managing who you are investing in and it should go a long way in mitigating these small cap "curve balls".

A recent Moneyweb article worth reading about this saga...

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