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Press Release SEC Charges Two Canadian Citizens With Penny Stock Fraud Involving Tennessee Coal Mining Company
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2014-247
Washington D.C., Nov. 3, 2014
http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370543353565#.VFpXQRbfWho
I saw this post too late. This stock was a "pump and dump" three to four years ago when it was listed as AENY. I got suckered and lost close to 3.5k. I'm glad I caught it in time or I would've lost the entire investment.
I believe this company is a scam to get investors money with out producing any viable product or services. The CEO and board of directors should be thrown in prison. Watch for these people they will popup again in the future with another sham company.
Converting to Chapter 7.
I just found on Pacer that the trustee has asked to convert the Chapter 11 to a Chapter 7. The hearing is scheduled for Feb 28, 2013.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
AENYQ SEC Suspension:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2013/34-68821.pdf
ORDER:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2013/34-68821-o.pdf
Yes I got suckerd by this stock where I invested over 2 years ago, i am in the red for $5200.00.
always hoping it will come back. does not look good.
While this is not the big coal lease, that one is from Barbra Evans, I think this is the start of a disaster for the common shareholders.
While I was wrong about their being NO revenue for the company, since they were paid $77,000 for wheelage rights to take coal from the Smith lease (about 189 acres) for December 2012, it was the last month that any coal is being taken from the Smith lease. The trustee lost the lease because there are not coal operations on the lease and there is no way to economically mine the coal there (and keep the lease) because of the low prices plus they do not have the equipment to do it. The company that was mining coal on the lease was able to do it because they had mining operations on a nearby property but have since stopped mining there and moved the equipment elsewhere. Without that company, it looks like there will be no more mining on any of AENYQ leases plus the company has to pay for land reclaiming, which I expect will cost at least a few hundred thousand or more.
Unless the coal leases somehow become valuable, I expect the common stock is worthless and that some of the creditors may take a 'haircut' on their claims.
While the company has filed and is in a chpater 11 plan, it looks like to me that everything is going to be sold off, the creditors paid off and the coal leases revert back to the original owners since nothing is being mined. At that point, I expect there will be nothing left over for a distribution to the common stockholders.
The only hope I see for the common stock is that somehow natural gas prices rise and that allows coal prices to rise to the point where the coal can be mined at a profit. Unfortunately, it looks like the stockpile of natural gas is higher this year than it was at the same point last year (last few weeks of Barron's magazine reporting this as I recall) plus right now we are having weather that is warmer than normal in the Northeast. In Worcester, MA it is expect to be in the low 40s today and Saturday in the 50s, none of which is going to cause natural gas prices to go up and allow the coal prices to go up so it can be mined at a profit.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do not own any stock in this company and will not be buying any based upon the information released so far.
Judge ruled in Smith's favor. Lease is not assumed.
I think what people hope for is that after everything is sold off, that there is some left over for the common shareholders. If (and it is a big if) any of the latest SEC filing value was realized with asset sales, there would be some money left over for the common shareholders. The only problem is that with the decline in coal prices plus the shutdown in operations, seem to imply that the coal leases have little to no value. Even though the company is still in a chapter 11 filing, the trustee has taken over and it looks like is just selling everything off to pay the outstanding liabilities.
With such a low price, it looks like people hope that there will be a few million left over for distribution to the common shareholders. The problem is trying to figure out how much, if anything, the coal leases will sell for.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do not own any shares in this company.
I don't understand why there is trading on the shares of AENYQ. What are the buyers hoping for?
Some sort of a buy-out?
There was nothing interesting except a filing on pacer to use $200,000 for expenses that is sitting in the cash account from what has been sold off so far. I just looked and 1.5 million shares traded at $0.0032 for a total of $4,800 traded.
Some may have been selling to take losses this year as we are nearing year end. There is still a large block on the bid side, a little over 3.3 million shares on the bid at $0.0032 with only 45,000 shares on the asked at $0.0045 (Dec 19, 2012 at 10:17am.)
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own this stock.
Doobywad, you just bought AENYQ. I've had it for a long time. Why would you buy it now? They are in Chapter XI. Any expectations?
I don't thimk we should simply let go
I think we should try to find out what happened to this coal company; but, we should not expect Louis to do it by himself
Any stockholders of AENYQ?
We need all stockholders that have gotten hurt, economically, by this company to come forward
Thanks Louis
Let's go forward as much as you can
Let's get the support of other stockholders and let the court know that we are interested.
I am starting to lean in that direction. While I DO believe there is coal on the leased properties, I do not think it can be mined at a profit. That would explain the complete lack of cash at the time of the filing. I also question if the leases are valued at anywhere near what they are on the balance sheet for.
Another question that has not been answered, the other company that wanted to do some kind of deal or buy in and has a secured claim in the filing, what happened to the cash or note that they put up? Did it all get spent on expenses with little to no sales or was there never anything of value exchanged? (i.e. Was the other company was some kind of shell set up to put an asset on AENY's balance sheet but it really has no value since they were never going to put in any cash.)
we have part of the answer because the trustee already stopped operations. The second part will be answered when we see what the leases can be sold for or if the leases just get returned to the owners.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own any shares.
I think there is some coal there, but from what the trustee is saying, it does not look like it can be profitably mined, at least not by this company because all of there workers have been laid off and all of the equipment is/was sold to pay off the loans on it.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own shares in this company.
I am starting to think there may be some errors with the schedules.
With the Evans claim, it is listed, I think as a secured claim but the schedules only list it against all of the assets of Evans Coal and Americas.
Evan Coals summary statement of financial assets does not look like it matches what is declared for the 100% ownership on Americas Energy, which normally I would expect it to do so. Another problem is that for Americas a number of schedules were amended after the first set was filed.
I think the $5 million to $7 million number was filed by the original management of the company. I am not sure, but it looks like the original management may still be trying to get back in to 'run the company'. If this is correct, I do not expect it will work since there are no operations. The case in a number of places indicates that the coal can not be mined at a profit with prices so low.
A just added documents for Evans Coal was pacer document #352. There an owner of one of the coal leases is trying to get the lease returned to them because there has been no mining since May 2010, the company has not corrected some state mining violations, and has no plans or ability to start mining again. It looks like the trustee would like to hold onto the lease with the hope of selling off the remainder of the lease if prices recover. The problem is that those leases (this one included apparently) have a clause in them that if there is no mining, then the lease terminates. From what I have read, I expect the lease owners to get it back again.
I am going to have to print out the entire list of documents and probably download most of the remaining ones that I do not have yet to make sure of what I am saying here.
The biggest problems here is that there is no clear indication yet as to how the coal leases ever got their $10.5 million value or why, even when they were operating, why sales were so low in relation to the value of the leases. Even back then it is not clear how the 10.5 million number was arrived at. I hope to look at some of the past 10Q and 10K SEC reports to see if there is something like a PV10 valuation for the coal leases, like there would be for oil or gas properties.
Louis J. Desy Jr
LouisDesyJr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own any shares in this company.
But, is there carbon or were we swindled?
The price went up again
I know it is small amount; but somebody is buying
What filing did you see that said that they expected 5-7 million after everything was sold off? Was it prepared by the old management or the trustee?
As a side note, 141k are the fees for Frantz, McConnell, and Seymour LLP and 32k for the trustee from Dec 2011 to Oct 2012. Its essential to keep in mind the admin cost if there's going to be anything left for shareholders.
The total for all of the claims of America's Energy and Evans Coal, is aprox 7m I believe. Now this includes two claims from Barbara Evans, one on each schedule for the amount of $1,561,609. Since the claims are equal, it makes me think they're the same claim which means I would be adding an additional 1.5m that shouldn't be there. Maybe someone out there could clarify this?
I was able to talk with the trustee for the company by email today.
Here is what I found out or confirmed so far:
1: Management is no longer running the company.
I think that this is a plus in the sense that it removes them from the picture and the common stockholders do not have to worry about getting pushed out of anything that is left over. The first reorg plan had the current shares being exchanged on a 1 new for 20 current shares, that is the plan that the SEC stopped.
2: There are no operations.
This means that the cash that is being reported must be only from sale of assets.
3: Quote from the trustee's email to me about the common shares:
"To date, there are no classes. Equity holders would be paid something if other claims are paid in full."
This is good is the sale of assets exceeds liabilities. The only problem is figuring out what, if anything, the coal leases are worth. Another problem is that even if there is value here, how long will it take to realize anything. From what I saw in other chapter 11 cases, like Rancher Energy and Sterling Energy Resources, it could easily take 3 or 4 years before anything gets paid out, providing there is anything to payout. Since Americas filed in December 2011, the earliest I would expect anything would be December 2014 and probably more like sometime in 2015.
Right now the bid/ask is $0.003/$0.005 with the share blocks 4,988,300/580,000 with 121,300 shares traded as of 2:06 pm today.
Still not sure why so much action in the stock. At this point it looks like someone is investing $15K in the common providing they can get their price ($0.003/share).
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own any shares.
Thank you very much Louis
It is all very interesting
I know Asian countries are looking for coal.
Do we have any; that is the question
Can't find who or what company recommended this company in the first place
Thanks again
I just checked on the stock price again.
Only 79,150 shares have traded, no higher than $0.0045 per share for a total of $356.18 so far.
While the percentage increase is a large amount (up $0.0026 for a gain of 136% over yesterday), the dollar volume is so small as to not be meaningful.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own shares in this company but may purchase if it drops below $0.002/share
I noticed the first thing this morning. the bid/ask was the typical recent $0.0022/$0.003, then all of a sudden someone hit the ask for about 10,000 shares ($45 worth) after that someone pushed it up to $0.0045 and put in buy order for about 4.9 million shares.
There appears to be nothing from pacer or any news annoucement.
I am still looking at the pacer filings.
One filing does mention they expect between 5 million to 7 million once everything is sold off.
From what I can tell, it looks like a trustee is operating the company. So far there have been some equipment sales and it looks like the proceeds will have to be paid to the note holders. I am still trying to find out what is suppose to happen to the coal leases. As far as I can tell, I think that the company is supposed to sell them off at some point but I can't tell so far. I also tried to contact the trustee but have not heard back yet.
The big risk and main item, what are the coal leases worth? If they are worth the low end of the range, it looks like to me that there will only be enough money to pay off the liabilities with little to nothing left over for the common shares.
The summary lists $19.8 million of assets against $5.4 million of liabilities. The problem is that $17.7 million of that assets are Evans Coal that is mainly in coal leases. If the coal leases have none to little value, then there will be nothing left for the common shareholders.
In looking at more of the reports, it looks like all of the equipment either has been sold off or is scheduled to be sold off, plus the employees were laid off Dec 31, 2011. The CEO (I think) is being paid $4,000 per month (down from $10,000 per month) to assist.
In one of the documents it was stated that since there are no employees or equipment, that any coal mining should be contracted out, if it would be profitable.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own shares in this company.
Louis, I will be sending you my e-mail
Perhaps a concerted stockholder's action will get some results
Thanks Louis,
There is so much fishy stuff going on with this company, and the entire back story. In posts from prior years it seemed like this company was a complete pump and dump. If it only was a pump and dump, how was it able to sell millions of dollars worth of equipment? I started doing some more due diligence and ran across some even more names that are suspicious to me. Still looking into a lot more stuff, but i'll keep you guys posted.
Have a good weekend,
Joe
I found today document #332, an operating report for Evans Coal, filed by the trustee that covers to the end of August 31, 2012. It looks like there is now cash from things being sold off. The cash balance as of August 31, 2012 was $1.7 million.
The problem is that I think this is from selling off equipment and the main item, the coal leases, do not seem to have anything done with them yet.
As a note, there are two bankruptcy cases here, one for the parent Americas, that is the public trading stock, and another case for Evans Coal, its 100% owned subsidiary.
At least things look at little better since there is cash to pay expenses with but until the coal leases are sold off or being operating again, it is hard to tell if there is any value for the common stock.
It is also not clear if a new chapter 11 plan is going to be filed or when it will be filed.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do not own shares in this company.
If people send me their email address, I can send you a copy of some of the pacer documents on the two cases since I downloaded a number of the documents in PDF form.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Okay so there's a market for AENYQ because the shares haven't been cancelled. You can get all of the information regarding this case off of PACER, but you have to sign up for it, and pay .10 for every page that you view. I'm learning as I go with this bankruptcy process, but this is some of what I've gathered from this case so far.
Evan's Coal, the wholly owned subsidiary of America's Energy, is the only thing that potentially has material value in this case. Furthermore, looking at the schedules filed, the Coal Mining leases valued at $10.5m. Sooner than later I'm assuming these leases will be auctioned off because since the filing of this case the trustee is going through them and either assumes it or rejects it.
At this point in time, the trustee and Bradley and Susan Smith are before the court, arguing over whether the lease between the Smiths and the Company should be assumed (the Trustee argues it should be assumed, the Smiths claim that the company has breached the agreement). What initially re-sparked my interest in the case is that the Trustee has said that since the time of filing this individual lease has generated $77,000 in revenue.
Moreover, another development in the case is that some of the equipment has been auctioned off. One of the largest creditors claims is Barbara Evans' (same party that Americas Energy initially purchased Evans Coal from) and that claim was valued at 1.5m and was secured by this equipment. I forgot the exact number that the equipment was auctioned off for but it was near 1.25 I believe.
The old management in this case is gone, and they tried to pull a fast one and file a POR but it got shot down in court and a Trustee was immediately appointed. I don't know if this whole thing was a fraud, if shareholders are entitled to take action against them, or what a reasonable value for these leases is (surely it's not 10.5m). Coal prices have been improving though.
There may be something in this case that is just way over my head, that an experienced distressed investor can point to and say "Joe you're an idiot, this equity is a flat zero" but I haven't talked to anyone else out there that is even following this case.
Unfortunately, the company looks like a disaster and possibly it may even be as bad as a scam. I can understand, and have seen, companies where things just did not work out as planned, but this seems to be a level worse than that.
I came across Evan Coal (and Amiercas Energy) when an article about Vringo had comments about Evans Coal.
I have had profitable investments in other companies (Sterling Energy Resources and Rancher Energy) that went through and came out of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. In those cases, the stock was trading at times for below its net cash value. While one had to wait a while to release their payday, at least they knew that their stock was backed with cash and did not have to worry.
I was considering buying some Americas Energy common stock, but decided not based upon what I have found.
The situation (and problems) with the company are:
1: No SEC filings since last year. The last SEC filing is an 8K on December 13, 2011.
2: The SEC filed an objection to the reorganization plan:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/apr/02/sec-weighs-in-on-americas-energy-bankruptcy/
It is unusual for the SEC to file an objection to a reorganization plan.
3: Schedule B of the chapter 11 filing list things that look like the company was being used to pay for all kinds of personal items and not being used as I would normal expect a business to have.
Examples of what I considered unusual items from the Schedule B – Personal Property (document #26 on the pacer system with the filing) are:
ITEM 4. Household goods and furnishings, 5 televisions $500 $670.00
Including audio, video and computer 1 stove $50
Equipment. 1 dishwasher $50
1 microwave $10
1 refrigerator $50
1 mirror $10
(Why does a company own these items? When I saw this, I thought I had accidently pulled up the filing of a person and not a company.)
ITEM 1 - cash on hand - none
ITEM 2 - bank accounts – There is a bank account listed but it is listed as having zero.
(How did the company operate if it had no cash in the bank?
If there is value to the coal leases, why does company have no cash?)
5. Plan of reorganization, pacer document #89, lists shareholders as getting 1 share in the reorganized company for every 20 shares held before the filing. To me this implies that existing shareholders will only have 5% of the reformed company.
6: Negative article posted online with Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2011/12/12/public-company-files-for-bankruptcy-very-quietly/
That article questioned the ability of the company to complete any deal and noted that its stock had dropped to $0.03 at the time of the article. That article noted past problems with company officials.
7: The company appears to have no operations and no cash. The operating reports that the trustee had requested to be filed by the company are not being filed. Normally, these reports would have shown at least what was going on and what the balances were in the bank accounts. The trustee also filed a report, on pacer as document #145, listing that as of Feb 29, 2012, the company had no employees or operations.
8: The filing does list a value on Evan’s Coal of $17.7 million but I question this valuation since there appears to be no planned sale of this interest, except for the one foreign based company that appears to have been canceled nor do there appear to be any other buyers. While the summary of schedules, pacer document #33, do list the company as having value there appears to be no way to realize that value. That document lists $19,889,656.00 in assets and $5,366,464.56 in liabilities for a net value of $14,523,191.44; $17,700,000 of the assets are Evans Coal Corp (pacer document #26).
In summary, I do not expect the shareholders to realize any value and would not be surprised if the company gets converted to a chapter 7 liquidation at some point.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
LouisDesyjr@gmail.com
Disclosure: I do NOT own any shares in this company.
Also Joe, why is there a market on AENYQ shares?
Who is buying?
I've read that China is buying coal
I know it is wishful thinking
How can we get information on the company?
I'm not sure if this was a swindle or if this is worth anything at all to be honest. this may just be a learning experience lol
I seem to read that China is buying carbon.
Are we in the market?
On October 11th they reported a sale of office furniture...whopping $1,750. Besides that this case is moving slow.
that disclosure statement that's been posted on here has been terminated as of 4/5/12. There were a lot of material flaws in it apparently
The case is still going on...
https://ecf.tneb.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/HistDocQry.pl?268666666505596-L_1_0-1
Small company with only 19M in assets at the time of the voluntary petition. In the document Jaxxstraw provided, it claims the company will be able to cover all secured and unsecured creditors as well other expenses (admin etc.) through asset sales, w some remaining should go to shareholders. If I understand correctly its basically like a liquidation except they're keeping the holding company. One person in management has about 7% of the shares so I suppose that's a good thing. I'm new to this stuff but so far everything I've seen points to good signs! I just may rank up a nice PACER bill on this one. Happy investing everyone!
If they filed bankrupt why are they still trading stock? Would not new stock need to be issued at time of discharge?
You are so far over my head I cannot even see you. To boil it all down would this subpenny be a fun speculation or not. English please!
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