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Surely not. It can’t be. No way!

Michael Breslow, the reported chief executive of an alleged Brazilian company called Multi-Long Corp, cannot be the latest incarnation of our famous Gold Fields bid hoaxer, Edward Pastorini?
After all, numerous professional international media - from Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters to the Associated Press - have reported that Mr Breslow has made a “concrete bid” for Italy’s beleaguered Alitalia and also forwarded details to the EU.

Bloomberg has even received an email from the Multi-Long boss saying:

We are the only private company that has offered a concrete bid for Alitalia…(and funds for the offer are) larger than anyone can imagine.

Uh-oh. Let’s read that again: funds for an Alitalia takeover are “larger than anyone can imagine.”

Is that really the language of corporate finance? Or might our suspicions simply be fuelled  (unfairly) by the fact that this financier is speaking English as a second language.

For what it’s worth, an AP report last week said Multi-Long Corp had offered $1.5bn for Alitalia. It cited Mr Breslow as saying that while no financing was in place, he was confident the money could be raised from European and Brazilian banks.

But let’s look at the background. In trying to assess Mr Breslow’s credibility Thomson, Bloomberg and others cite the fact that Brazilian news agency Estado reported back in 2006 that Multi-Long had made an $800m offer for Brazilian airline Varig, seemingly financed with loans from Brazil’s state development bank, BNDES, and also a sale of domestic bonds.

Yet accompanying reports from the time, when Varig was subject to judicial control in Brazil, suggest Mr Breslow’s proposals were not taken seriously. A translation of one report states:

The BNDES denies having received the request for funding to the Multi-Long. The judge Ayoub said the proposal is not being considered.

Another report links Multi-long with a Brazilian politician, Jose Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, before veering off into a rant about Boris Berezovsky, Hugo Chavez and bankers Rothschild, who are described as “the biggest usurpers, thieves and parasites international of all time,” according to FT Alphaville’s Portuguese translation service. (Google).

So we will discount this as a source of hard information and/or informed opinion for now.

Related links
Earth to Bloomberg - the GoldFields bid story is a hoax - FT Alphaville, April 2007
Pastorini speaks - part I, part II - FT Alphaville, April 2007
Will the real Pastorini please stand up? - FT Alphaville, September 2007