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Jefferson Davis Bootes
If there ever was a more pathetic scammer to briefly rise from the cesspool of scum in Central Florida I have yet to meet him. I met Bootes once in the 90's at a party put on by his equally scummy mentor Roy Meadows.
He was pumping some completely ridiculous gold mining Company and thought he found a hot investor. His prospect was also promoting a similar fraud. It was amusing as hell when they both realized that they were each trying to scam each other. Their conversation ended quickly when they both realized.
I checked him out. Like most of his ilk he blends a small amount of credibility with great puffery in an attempt to sell worthless stock. His scam at the time was J.A.B. Mining or something.
If you look at his Facebook page it shows him holding a Dolphin. If that is not the face of a crackhead I don't know what is. He said he was in the Army special forces at one time but his hollow eyes and gaunt appearance seemed more like an addict than a Company President. Of course my opinion but check it out and you be the judge. https://www.facebook.com/jefferson.bootes
(By the way I think this photo was taken years before I met him so he must have been on the stuff for years by then)
I would like to apologize for calling ZLUS, STHG, & JUNP scams!
Are Billions of Dollars at stake ?............. You decided...........
ANOTHER HUGE SALE OF OPTION CONTRACTS
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:43:25 GMT
Good Morning Everyone,
OTHER THAN THE EXPECTED FINANCIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS, ANYBODY HAVE A CLUE
AS TO WHAT THESE 'INVESTORS' ARE EXPECTING?
****************************************************************
THEY DID IT AGAIN. . . . ANOTHER HUGE SALE OF OPTION CONTRACTS ON $4.5
BILLION WORTH OF STOCKS BETTING THE MARKET WILL LOSE 30%-50% OF ITS
VALUE IN FOUR WEEKS!
THIS SALE ON THE SPY.X AND THE ONE FROM YESTERDAY ON THE SPY.Y
(MENTIONED TWO STORIES BELOW) ARE BEING REFERRED-TO BY FOLKS IN THE
MARKET AS "BIN LADEN TRADES" BECAUSE ONLY AN ACT OF TERRORISM AKIN TO
9-11 (WITHIN THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS) COULD MAKE THESE OPTIONS VALUABLE.
There are 65,000 contracts @ $750.00 for the SPX 700 calls for open
interest. That controls 6.5 million shares at $750 = $4.5 Billion. Not a
single trade. But quite a bit of $$ on a contract that is 700 points
away from current value. No one would buy that deep "in the money"
calls. No reason to. So if they were sold looks like someone betting on
massive dislocation. Lots of very strange option activity that I haven't
seen before.
The entity or individual offering these sales can only make money if the
market drops 30%-50% within the next four weeks. If the market does not
drop, the entity or individual involved stands to lose over $1 billion
just for engaging in these contracts!
Clearly, someone knows something big is going to happen BEFORE the options expire on Sept. 21.
THEORIES:
The following theories are being discussed widely within the stock and
options markets today regarding the enormous and very unusual activity
reported above and two stories below. Those theories are:
1) A massive terrorist attack is going to take place before Sept. 21 to
tank the markets, OR;
2) China, reeling over losing $10 Billion in bad loans to the sub-prime
mortgage collapse presently taking place, is going to dump US currency
and tank all of Capitalism with a Communist financial revolution.
Either scenario is bad and the clock is ticking. The drop-dead date of
these contracts is September 21. Whatever is going to happen MUST take
place between now and then or the folks involved in these contracts will
lose over $1 billion for having engaged in this activity.
-------------
"$1.78 Billion Bet that Stock Markets will crash by third week in September
Anonymous Stock Trader Sells 10K Contracts on EVERY S&P/Y "Strike"
Shorts Stocks "in the money" effectively selling all his SPY holdings
for cash up front without pressuring the market downward
This is an enormous and dangerous stock option activity. If it goes
right, the guy makes about $2 Billion. If he's wrong, his out of pocket
costs for buying these options will exceed $700 Million!!!
The entity who sold these contracts can only make money if the stock
market totally crashes by the third week in September.
Bear in mind that the last time anyone conducted such large and unusual
stock option trades (like this one) was in the weeks before the attacks
of September 11.
Back then, they bought huge numbers of PUTS on airline stocks in the
same airlines whose planes were involved in the September 11 attacks.
Despite knowing who made these trades, the Securities and Exchange
Commission NEVER revealed who made the unusual trades and no one was
ever publicly identified as being responsible for the trades which made
upwards of $50 million when the attacks happened.
The fact that this latest activity by a single entity gambles on a
complete collapse of the entire market by the third week in September,
seems to indicate someone knows something really huge is in the works
and they intend to profit almost $2 Billion within the next four weeks
from whatever happens! This is really worrisome."
more here: link to www.tickerforum.org
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=4669
Bingo!.................. September 10, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Federal authorities announced last week that members of a "pump-and-dump" spam group that bilked more than $20 million from naïve, overeager investors have all pleaded guilty.
Although four men admitted to the scam in July and August, the U.S. Department of Justice only disclosed the pleas last Thursday. All four face prison terms of between five and 10 years each on one or more counts of fraud. Two of the men have also pleaded guilty to civil charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Starting in 2004, Michael Saquella, a.k.a. Michael Paloma, 47, of Mesa, Ariz.; Lawrence Kaplan, 63, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; Henry Zemla, 38, of Harris Township, Mich.; and Justin Medlin, 26, of Paris, France, hustled investors by convincing owners of 15 small corporations to turn over large chunks of those firms' penny stocks after promising that they could take the companies public. They then e-mailed fraudulent press releases to drive interest in the companies' stocks, create artificial demand and drive up share prices. Medlin was one of several spammers hired by Saquella, Kaplan, and Zemla to push the stocks.
Once the stock price had been pumped up, the men dumped the shares they controlled, leaving duped investors holding the bag. The scams netted more than $20 million in profits, said Alice Fisher, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's criminal division. The men kept the bulk of the proceeds, but some were turned over to the companies in question.
Saquella, Kaplan, Zemla and Medlin face five years in jail on each fraud charge and will be sentenced between November 2007 and February 2008. Saquella, for example, pleaded guilty to two charges -- conspiracy to commit securities fraud and mail fraud -- and will face up to 10 years when he is sentenced Nov. 30. Three other defendants who pleaded guilty earlier this year have already been given jail terms of between one and five years.
Also on Thursday, Saquella and Kaplan admitted to multiple SEC violations. As part of that plea, the two must give up the nearly $3 million they made in duping investors of seven of the 15 companies eventually victimized.
"What makes this case stand out is the intricacy of the scheme," said Cheryl Scarboro, associate director of the SEC's enforcement division, in a statement. "These defendants were not only able to sneak these companies onto the public markets through the back door, they were able to manipulate those markets with old-fashioned pump-and-dump techniques."
Law enforcement and security regulators have cracked down on pump-and-dump schemes -- in March, the SEC froze $3 million in assets held by a Eastern European gang suspected of using hacked online brokerage accounts to fuel a stock-manipulation plan -- but the practice shows little sign of abating. Several large spam campaigns this summer, in fact, including one that security experts said was of unprecedented size, have hit consumers' in-boxes.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22762908
Here is one I almost went for, DD a Must folks ...if your not sure DO NOT BUY IT! IMHO
http://www.wpxi.com/video/11056265/detail.html
Yeah I realize that. Just updating the board.
Yech! I traded MGWE on a day or two, because it was moving on the pump, but the reasons described in your post are exactly the why we don't hold 90% of these plays. They are NOT investments.
The direction of most of these pinkie plays is down, unfortunately. It's not limited to MGWE.
MGWE - scam.
Pumped but the pump failed at .15 and two weeks later it is at .001.
Parent company's IR denied the claims in MGWE's PR's and released their own PR that they were contacting the SEC.
Since then millions of shares have come into the market. I'm guessing whatever promoters or scamsters dumping their stock and running with what they can.
Very interesting link
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2007_record&page=S9646&position=a....
Huey
Re: 7/12/07 - [EAG] California court freezes Eagle's receivables to pay award in anti-SLAPP suit
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=23700006
To: who wrote () 7/13/2007 2:21:46 PM
From: Bill from Wisconsin 1 Recommendation of 99661
California court freezes Eagle's receivables
Yesterday, July 12, 2007, a California court issued a restraining order that prohibits Eagle Broadband from disposing of any of its accounts receivable until it has posted a bond of at least $104,401.96.
Here is a link to a copy of Judge Kevin J. Murphy's order, which was entered in Eagle Broadband vs. Does, Case No. 1-05-cv-050179, California Superior Court, Santa Clara County:
http://eagle.petrofsky.org/docs/Eagle-288.pdf
The order goes on to explicitly notify Eagle that failure to comply with the restraining order may result in Eagle being held in contempt of court.
BACKGROUND:
In October 2005, Eagle sued Thomas Mould (a/k/a Benderanddundat a/k/a DOE 5) and six other Yahoo message board posters, alleging defamation and unfair competition. In March 2006, the court found that Eagle's case against Mould was meritless, and in August 2006, the court ordered Eagle to pay Mould $66,451.68 to cover his attorney fees and costs.
Under California procedure, Eagle had 60 days to either pay the judgment or file an appeal and post a bond (see California Code of Civil Procedure, section 917.1). In October, Eagle filed an appeal (which is still pending), but it ignored its obligation to post a bond. This forced Mould to engage in additional litigation to try to collect the debt.
YESTERDAY'S RULING:
The ruling says that Eagle will have to pay Mould's attorney fees and costs for his post-judgment collection efforts (in an amount to be determined), in addition to the $66,451.68 Eagle was ordered to pay Mould last August.
The ruling gives Eagle 30 days to post a bond for at least $104,401.96 (one and a half times the August judgment, plus some interest), and prohibits Eagle from "assigning, mortgaging, selling, or otherwise disposing of any and all accounts receivable, rights to payment of money, or claims for payment of money due from third parties", until the bond is posted. The order also says: "NOTICE is hereby given that failure by the judgment debtor to comply with the restraining order may subject the judgment debtor to being held in contempt of court".
I'm guessing that Eagle has sufficient cash on hand to quickly post a bond and terminate the restraining order, but it's hard to say, because the most recent public financial data for Eagle is more than four months old. (Eagle's next Form 10-Q is due on Monday.)
I'm not sure why Eagle was so ornery for the last nine months about paying or securing this judgment. Unlike the recent $3 million Cubley judgment, which obviously might put Eagle out of business, the $66,000 Mould judgment seems to have been well within Eagle's ability to pay. On Eagle's last quarterly balance sheet before the judgment, and on each balance sheet thereafter, Eagle has claimed to have had unrestricted cash well in excess of the judgment amount (Eagle had $689,000 in cash as of February 28, the date of the most recent report). Instead of just putting up the money, Eagle chose to make Mould engage in collection proceedings, for which Eagle had to pay its own lawyers and now it has been told that it will have to pay Mould's lawyers as well.
Links:
Yesterday's ruling: http://eagle.petrofsky.org/docs/Eagle-288.pdf
Other documents from that case: http://eagle.petrofsky.org/trial-court.html
The $3 million Cubley judgment: http://eagle.petrofsky.org/docs/Cubley-Eagle-final-judgment.html
Eagle's most recent balance sheet: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1023139/000135448807000640/eagle10qreport.htm#OLE_LINK7
http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=23699048
Whole Foods Launches Probe Into CEO Mackey's Web Posts
By DAVID KESMODEL
July 17, 2007 4:58 p.m.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118470129494469198.html
Whole Foods Market Inc.'s board of directors said today that it has formed a special committee to conduct an internal investigation into the anonymous online postings made by the company's chairman and chief executive officer, John Mackey, over a roughly eight-year period. Mr. Mackey apologized for his actions.
"I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards," Mr. Mackey said. "I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me."RAHODEB SPEAKS
• Rahodeb's Greatest Hits: Highlights from Mackey's online posts1
Postings by 'Rahodeb' on Yahoo:
• Rahodeb's farewell comment2 to the Yahoo message board for Whole Foods stock in August 2006.
• Rahodeb says the fundamentals of Wild Oats shares haven't improved3 and that its stock price had risen merely because of speculation of a buyout.
• Rahodeb lambastes a Yahoo user4 who claimed Wild Oats had been a takeover target at $14 to $16 a share.
• Rahodeb predicts that Whole Foods shares will one day trade at more than $8005.
• Rahodeb claims Whole Foods shares are undervalued6 and Wild Oats is overvalued.
Note: Whole Foods didn't authenticate each and every one of Rahodeb's postings as being from Mr. Mackey. But the company and Mr. Mackey confirmed that he made numerous postings under the name Rahodeb from 1999 to 2006.
MORE
• SEC Opens Inquiry Into Mackey's Web Posts7
7/14/07
• Page One: Whole Foods CEO Posted on Forums8
7/12/07
• MarketBeat: CEOs Who Blog9
• Whole Foods confirms10 that John Mackey used an alias in making comments about the company's stock on Yahoo's Web site.
• John Mackey's blog11
• Read the full text of the FTC complaint12 and the FTC document released July 1013.
• Whole Foods CEO Has Heated Words for FTC14
06/27/2007
• CEO's Words May Cook Whole Foods15
06/20/2007
The company also confirmed that the Securities and Exchange Commission had contacted the company about its informal investigation into the company. Whole Foods will fully cooperate with the probe, it said.
The board didn't elaborate beyond a news release issued today. The committee has retained the firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP to advise it during the probe.
For about eight years, Mr. Mackey posted numerous comments about the natural and organic food retailer on Yahoo stock forums using a pseudonym. In some of his postings, Mr. Mackey, the company's co-founder, lauded Whole Foods' stock, cheered its financial results and bashed a company Whole Foods has made a bid to acquire.
While it isn't clear that Mr. Mackey violated any laws in his postings, they have raised numerous legal questions. The SEC is likely to examine whether Mr. Mackey's comments contradicted what the company previously said, or if they were overly optimistic about the firm's performance. In addition, the SEC will likely look at whether the CEO selectively disclosed material corporate information -- that could violate a securities law passed in 2000 known as Regulation Fair Disclosure, which was designed to prevent executives from sharing information with favored clients or analysts.
Mr. Mackey's postings came to light as the Federal Trade Commission investigated the company's planned acquisition of Wild Oats Markets Inc. On July 11, Whole Foods said that among millions of documents it gave to the FTC were Internet postings the CEO made from 1999 to 2006. Mr. Mackey used the pseudonym Rahodeb, a rendering of the name of the CEO's wife, Deborah.
Whole Foods, of Austin, Texas, in February announced plans to buy Wild Oats, of Boulder, Colo., for $565 million, or $18.50 a share, creating a powerhouse in natural and organic food retailing.
The Federal Trade Commission sued to block Whole Foods' purchase of Wild Oats on June 6 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The government contends the combination would violate antitrust law by reducing competition and raising prices for consumers. It is narrowly defining the market that Whole Foods and Wild Oats operate in as "premium natural and organic supermarkets."
Mr. Mackey has said the government "has failed to recognize the robust competition in the supermarket industry, which has grown more intense as competitors increase their offerings of natural, organic and fresh products." A hearing on the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction to thwart the merger is scheduled for July 31.
Write to David Kesmodel at david.kesmodel@wsj.com16
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118470129494469198.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118434420186666008.html
(2) http://tinyurl.com/24vtow
(3) http://tinyurl.com/267oc7
(4) http://tinyurl.com/23el99
(5) http://tinyurl.com/2bz3ow
(6) http://tinyurl.com/2hrrkt
(7) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118436389533866187.html
(8) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118418782959963745.html
(9) http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2007/07/12/the-ceo-blogs/
(10) http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/ftchearingupdates/faq.html
(11) http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jm/
(12) http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WholeFoodsComplaint20070619.pdf
(13) http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/mackey-ftc-07112007.pdf
(14) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118289879472149174.html
(15) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118227946035340856.html
(16) mailto:david.kesmodel@wsj.com
Lawsuit Against UBS Spotlights
Prime Brokers
A Fallen Hedge Fund
Says Wall Street Firm
Misused Trading Data
By RANDALL SMITH
May 23, 2007; Page C1
NEW YORK -- On Wall Street, it is one of the fastest-growing, most lucrative businesses: providing a range of brokerage services to hedge funds.
A lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan state court offers a vivid description of alleged conflicts for Wall Street giants in what is known as prime brokerage.
Investors in Wood River Partners LP, a hedge fund that collapsed in 2005, have charged that UBS AG, the fund's prime broker, fraudulently earned more than $100 million by misusing knowledge of the fund's trades.
The plaintiffs, which collectively invested $79 million in Wood River, say UBS earned profits by selling borrowed shares in Wood River's biggest single stock holding, Endwave Corp., and helping other UBS clients do the same.
"UBS intends to defend itself vigorously against these allegations," a spokeswoman for UBS said in a prepared statement. She declined to elaborate. The lawsuit claimed $200 million in damages.
The lawsuit is the latest twist in the downfall of Wood River. In February, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged the fund's founder, John Whittier, with criminal fraud for breaking a promise that no stock would be valued at more than 10% of Wood River's portfolio. Wood River, they charged, acquired as much as 80% of Endwave, a stake that exceeded the 10% portfolio limit. The stock soared and then nose-dived in 2005. Mr. Whittier pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer yesterday declined to comment.
UBS acted as clearing broker, prime broker and custodian for all of Wood River's stock trades from late 2004 to summer 2005, the lawsuit says. UBS was also a market maker, or dealer, in the stock of Endwave, a San Jose, Calif., telecom-equipment maker, the lawsuit said. The two roles were "dual and conflicting," the lawsuit said.
Prime brokerage typically includes trade processing, stock lending and making margin loans for hedge funds that want to boost their returns through borrowing or leverage.
In a similar case, a federal bankruptcy court in February ordered Bear Stearns Cos. to pay about $160 million to the estate of Manhattan Investment Fund Ltd., saying Bear failed to act on signs of fraudulent activity at the fund for which it also served as a prime broker. Bear has filed an appeal.
The civil fraud case against UBS was filed on behalf of 20 plaintiffs led by Eurycleia Partners LP, a Delaware limited partnership that invested $1 million. The plaintiff with the most invested in Wood River was a group of Cayman Islands funds led by the Edison Fund, a fund of hedge funds that purchased options on a Wood River stake valued at $49 million through BNP Paribas.
The investors charged that UBS traders used knowledge of Wood River's undisclosed outsize Endwave stake to bet against the stock with short sales of 3.5 million Endwave shares. In a short sale, an investor sells borrowed stock and aims to profit by repurchasing the shares later at a lower price.
The lawsuit charged that Wood River's acquisition of more than 5% of Endwave triggered ownership-disclosure requirements that UBS knew Wood River was ignoring, and exceeded position limits in Wood River's own offering materials supplied to investors.
Although the lawsuit cited an April 2005 conversation in which a UBS executive was aware that Wood River owned 30% of Endwave, it didn't offer any specifics in this initial filing to support the allegation that UBS prime-brokerage executives knew that Wood River hadn't filed required ownership disclosures.
Instead of ensuring disclosure of the Endwave stake by Wood River, the lawsuit said, UBS "designed a scheme to co-opt that fraud, i.e., to make improper use of its position and nonpublic information to manipulate the market for Endwave stock for its own benefit in violation of the duties that it owed Wood River and its investors," knowing the plan risked harming Wood River's investors.
The lawsuit said UBS knew ownership of Endwave was concentrated among a few groups of holders, which limited the supply of stock that could be obtained for borrowing by short sellers seeking to profit from the stock's decline.
Despite Wood River's instructions to UBS in late 2004 not to make the Endwave stock available for borrowing by short sellers, UBS instead "lent out Wood River shares of Endwave for short selling purposes," the lawsuit said. It contended that UBS believed that Mr. Whittier couldn't complain to regulators because of his own failure to disclose the Endwave stake.
When Wood River repaid all borrowings secured by its Endwave stock in May 2005, effectively blocking UBS from lending any of the stock, UBS "improperly 'leaked' to" other brokers details of Wood River's Endwave holdings.
UBS also improperly facilitated other Endwave short sales, despite a lack of access to the shares, through "naked shorting," the plaintiffs charged. In a "naked" short sale, the seller doesn't borrow or arrange to borrow the securities in time to make delivery to the buyer within the standard three-day settlement period
Knowing Endwave shares were hard to borrow, UBS charged as much as 50% interest -- far above the going rate of 5% to 10% -- for short sellers to borrow shares and bet on a decline, the lawsuit said, earning interest of more than $100 million.
Mr. Whittier learned that UBS had made the stock available for borrowing by short sellers when he attempted to transfer the stock to another broker, Merrill Lynch & Co., in mid-2005, the lawsuit said.
As Wood River acquired more than four million Endwave shares by the summer of 2005, the purchases helped push the market price above $55 a share in July, up from $20 in March, the lawsuit indicated.
UBS then improperly "leaked" word of Mr. Whittier's confidential plans to sell 700,000 Endwave shares, sending the stock down 10% in one day, the lawsuit said.
In late June, BNP gave notice that the Cayman Islands funds led by Edison intended to redeem their $49 million Wood River stake, and Mr. Whittier "delayed compliance" with the request, the lawsuit said. From its peak of $55.41 in July 2005, Endwave stock tumbled to a low of $12.30 by September, sending Wood River into receivership when it couldn't honor investors' redemption requests.
Canaccord fined over short sales
Supervision inadequate, industry regulator rules
Jul 07, 2007 04:30 AM
VANCOUVER–The Investment Dealers Association of Canada has fined Canaccord Capital $85,000 for failing to adequately supervise an account and not restricting an unfair strategy called "naked short selling."
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/233374
...According to a negotiated settlement reviewed by a hearing panel June 29, the activity took place from November 2001 to November 2002 and involved two Toronto-based employees who dealt with options. They were responsible for managing the assets of Stonestreet LP, a hedge fund with an account at Canaccord, and, according to a statement of facts, were involved in "naked short selling," which involves short selling without first having borrowed the shares. ...
==========================================================
Gemini Explorations Inc. Reports Illegal Naked Short Interest
Position and Restates Total Number of Issued and Outstanding
Shares Reduced to 32,500,000
2007-06-07 12:10 ET - News Release
MIAMI, FL -- (MARKETWIRE) -- 06/07/07
Gemini Explorations Inc.
("Gemini") (OTCBB: GMXP) reports that after reviewing
the company's stock with an independent analyst, there is
an illegal naked short interest position of
approximately 3.5 to 4 million shares in GMXP.
This is in very sharp contrast to the OTCBB.com report
showing the short interest to be 23,972 shares as of
May 31, 2007.
NASD Rule 3360 has been expanded to require NASD member
firms to report their short positions on all over-the
counter ("OTC") equity securities to NASD Regulation,
on a monthly basis.
Once the short position reports are received, the
short interest is then compiled for each OTC security.
Firms are required to report their short positions as
of settlement on the 15th of each month, or the
preceding business day if the 15th is not a business day.
The reports must be filed by the second business day after
the reporting settlement date.
The short interest data is compiled and provided
for publication on the 8th business day after the
reporting settlement date.
Does somebody have any information on DGLV ? Thks
WANTED:
Board Moderator Assistants. No experience needed, at least 2 years of someone saying your crazy for running the stocks. Able to spell with Spell Checker. Willing to keep wee hours in the morning making coffee and sandwiches for the Moderator. May even have to wash dishes and keep the toilet lid clean in the bathroom.
If interested in this position please contact Huey!
Huey
Huey.. Thanks and no problem. I will be glad to share with links and facts when I find what I consider scams and frauds committed by companies..
I saw this post on another board and was very impressed with its content and totally agree with you. I didn't reply on that board because I made an agreement and I plan on honoring it. I hope you don't mind me posting it here..
Also I hope we can shake hands and move on from our weekend dispute. I do apologize to all parties involved...
-------------------------------------------------------
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21262642
You can't have any fun debating someone unless you respect them -- remember that.
Huey
--------------------------------------------------------
best regards
shorts
Shortsinhand, Thank you for your contributions to this board. I hope you will continue to provide valued information such as you have. To many times people jump before they look. I hope we can pump some "LIFE" into this board as it could prove very useful to many of the shareholders. Thanks again !
Huey
How is SBMI related to HMIT through the CCM connection?
>Siguiri Basin Mining, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: SBMI) Announces Status of Joint Venture
Friday July 6, 2:18 pm ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070706/0274804.html
PEMBROKE PINES, FL--(MARKET WIRE)--Jul 6, 2007 -- Siguiri Basin Mining, Inc. (Other OTC:SBMI.PK - News) President, Launa Carbonell, regretfully announces the termination of SBMI's agreement with Consolidated Mining and Minerals (CMM). Through considerable due diligence over the past week, SBMI has confirmed numerous unauthorized releases both inside information and incorrect information of principals or agents of CMM. Additionally, information has come into the hands of SBMI that indicates not all of the funds provided by SBMI to CMM under their agreement were appropriately applied to the projects in West Africa. This allegation is being thoroughly investigated for the benefit of the Company and its shareholders. Finally, SBMI has been required to disassociate itself with CMM after CMM's involvement in questionable press releases with Pinksheets company, Hidalgo Mining. These releases caused very questionable activity with the Hidalgo stock and CMM used the name of SBMI without authorization or prior knowledge of SBMI. After further investigation, SBMI will release all additional gathered information to the public on these subjects.
ADVERTISEMENT
Within the coming week, SBMI will announce its future plans to continue its efforts to achieve producer status in the industry.
Siguiri Basin Mining Inc. (Other OTC:SBMI.PK - News) is a mineral exploration and development company focused on achieving producer status. The Company's is currently in a joint venture with Consolidated Mining & Minerals Inc. and targets are precious metal properties in stable countries within opportunity rich West Africa, Haiti, North, Central and South America with near term production capabilities. www.sbmining.com
Here's a fresh off the presses scam for you! [HMIT]
the typical bootes coal shell dance.. They even just put a PR admitting security Fraud... Amazing stuff..
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070713/laf043.html?.v=94
Bootes Relationship With Hidalgo Mining International (Pink Sheets: HMIT) Terminated Resulting from Investigations by the Board into His Undisclosed Activities
PAHRUMP, Nev., July 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- John Darrah, President and Majority shareholder announced today action had been taken so that Jefferson A. Bootes is no longer associated with Hidalgo Mining International. Darrah stated, "After Bootes previously agreed on May 29, 2007 to return certificates for all 56 million shares of restricted common stock issued to him, he has not yet done so. Our investigations uncovered facts that put into question Mr. Bootes' veracity regarding representations and activities he had undertaken. These included assuming authorities not granted to him by the Board, issuing unauthorized press releases for his own purposes, and lodging millions of restricted shares in a brokerage house for undisclosed reasons. Furthermore after negotiating his coal claims into Hidalgo, on April 18, 2007 he apparently utilized the same Monclova coal project, to assume all the top executive positions with International Energy, Ltd. ILGL is a public company associated with Select American Transfer Company presently under investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission for alleged activities resulting in pump and dump shorting of vulnerable pink sheet companies."
Mr. Darrah went on to say, "Whatever his expressed intentions are, Mr. Bootes' damaging actions speak louder than his own words. His failure after repeated requests to disclose these activities to the Board has been detrimental to the interests of Hidalgo and its shareholders. We regrettably have no choice but to end it by severing relations with Mr. Bootes. All of his apparent assets that he brought to HMIT have previously been transferred to a subsidiary, Hidalgo Mining Inc., a private Nevada corporation with Mr. Bootes in complete control of that company as its sole shareholder, after stock ownership in that corporation transferred to him by HMIT."
What Facts do you have to make that statement please provide LINK and FACTs please. This is what I was able to find on MEDP. If you have anything further to add please do so but post a link or provide valid information as to why your posting this stock "Looks like a scam"
Last PR from MEDP.
MedSpas Releases CEO Letter to Shareholders Describing Diversification Plans
MedSpas of America, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: MEDP), www.medspasofamerica.com, today released a letter to the Company's shareholders from Chairman and CEO, Paul R. Smith.
Dear Fellow and Valued Shareholders,
The medspa industry is experiencing rapid advancement in technological, operational and marketing changes. These dynamic changes in an emerging industry create market niche opportunities for MedSpas of America. Over the past six months, management has identified several untapped market niches that will allow us to diversify without losing focus.
In the past 90-days, we have made several adjustments to our business model that, in the opinion of management, will accelerate the growth of our company. In addition to our strategy of building a chain of branded medspas, management is moving the company into several vertical markets that are related to the service and supply side of the industry. The company has chosen an Interactive-based strategy to penetrate these market niches.
The company has targeted several qualified internet companies that meet the specific criteria established by management. These companies are now under review with management's intention to acquire and assimilate them into our company's business portfolio. These acquisitions will quickly move the company into a leadership position within these niche verticals. The company will then build on these acquisitions to continually expand its market share in the medical and medspa industry.
The company will continue its development of a branded chain of medspas. With the additional diversification into an Interactive-based supply/service business model provides the same profitability levels with substantially less capital cost and overhead, thus, balancing our cash flow and enhancing future shareholder value.
The dynamics of the medspa industry continues to grow and change as the industry evolves from its infancy some eight years ago to its current state of an emerging force that is poised for substantial growth over the next five years. According to the International Medical Spa Association (IMSA), the Medspa movement has been closely linked to the growing baby boomer generation in the United States, consisting of persons born during the post-World War II birth rate boom from 1946 - 1964. Baby boomers are the wealthiest, best educated and most sophisticated consumers in history and at 78 million strong, they are the single largest consumer group in the U.S. today. They currently make up 51 percent of the total U.S. population and control 75 percent of this country's wealth. IMSA statistics indicate that 12,000 Americans turn 50 every day (1 every 8 seconds) and this will continue for the next 20 years. Americans over 55 will grow by 60 percent in the next 20 years and their buying power will exceed $2 trillion in 2007.
Management is excited about the future and we look forward to continuing the efforts that bring profitability and shareholder value to the company.
Sincerely,
Paul R. Smith
Chairman & CEO
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors as may be discussed from time to time in the Company's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission"), press releases and verbal statements that may be made by our officers, directors or employees acting on our behalf which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and from historical results of operations. In addition to statements, which explicitly describe such risks and uncertainties, statements with the terms "believes," "belief," "expects," "plans," "anticipates" and similar statements should be considered uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that might cause such a difference include, without limitation: the uncertainty of the Company's ability to meet capital needs and as further set forth in our public filings filed with the Commission and our press releases.
Investor Contact Information:
Rich Kaiser
Investor Relations
YES INTERNATIONAL
800-631-8127
Source: Market Wire (July 12, 2007 - 8:05 AM EST)
News by QuoteMedia
www.quotemedia.com
3 Indian men indicted in brokerage hacking scheme that affected Ameritrade, E-Trade and others
•
Three hackers from India have been indicted in the U.S. on charges of conspiracy and fraud for accessing dozens of online brokerage accounts to jack up stock prices and reap more than $120,000 in illegal profits.
The alleged "hack, pump and dump" scheme cost one brokerage firm at least $2 million in losses, the Justice Department announced Monday. An estimated 60 customers and nine U.S. brokerage firms, including Ameritrade Holding Corp., E-Trade Financial Corp. and OptionsXpress, were duped in the case during a four-month period last year.
The three suspects bought stocks through the U.S. online firms with their own accounts, according to the 23-count indictment returned in January and unsealed Monday in Omaha, Neb.
Operating from Thailand and India, the men then allegedly used stolen identity information to pose as other online share-buyers, inflating the value of myriad securities, including those of search engine giant Google Inc.
The men later sold their own shares at a higher price, turning a profit of more than $121,500, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed separate civil charges against all three men in federal court in Nebraska.
One victim had $180,000 cash and equity in his account, and five days later returned from a trip to find a negative $200,000 balance, according to the SEC.
A spokesman for OptionsXpress Holdings Inc. declined to say how much it lost in the scheme or how long the Chicago-based firm had been working with government investigators.
But John Reed Stark, chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, praised the online brokerage community's cooperation, which included responding to requests for information in real-time since the scammers can manipulate online accounts from nearly anywhere on the planet.
Two of the three suspects _ Jaisankar Marimuthu, 32, of Chennai, India, and Thirugnanam Ramanathan, 34, an Indian native who lives in Malaysia _ were arrested in recent weeks in Hong Kong, the Justice Department said. The third, Chockalingam Ramanathan, 33, also of Chennai, India, is still at large.
The indictment by the Nebraska grand jury included charges of conspiracy, computer, wire and securities fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The case marks the first time hackers suspected of defrauding U.S.-based online brokerage firms have been arrested overseas, the Justice Department said. Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said such cases "pose serious risks to investors and brokerage firms across the globe."
The SEC has brought two other account intrusion cases since December, involving defendants in Estonia and Latvia.
New York-based E-Trade spent about $18 million in the third quarter of last year on fraud losses. About $8 million of that was to reimburse customers whose accounts had been hacked, including some cases from the indictment, said company spokeswoman Pam Erickson, declining to be more specific. Since last year, E-Trade has installed monitoring controls to alert customers of any unusual activity in their accounts.
Omaha, Neb.-based Ameritrade spent $4 million in the July-September quarter last year to reimburse customers whose accounts had been used for unauthorized transactions, said spokeswoman Kim Hillyer. She declined to provide any more details about those charges or losses incurred from transactions detailed in the indictment.
Both companies said their systems never have been penetrated and that the hacking affects customer accounts and computers.
Shares of Ameritrade slipped 14 cents to close at $15.51, while E-Trade added 8 cents to $22.80, and OptionsXpress rose 18 cents to $23.33, all on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
SEC charges two for penny stock spam scam
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed fraud charges against two Texan men who allegedly hijacked personal computers to launch penny stock e-mail scams that conned investors out of more than $4.6 million.
In a statement, the SEC claims that Darrel Uselton and his uncle, Jack Uselton, both from Texas, llegally profited during a 20 month "scalping" scam which involved the use of botnets that used hi-jacked PCs to forward spam e-mails touting 13 penny stock companies.
Recipients that fell for the scam drove up share prices and the men then sold off their own holdings. The SEC alleges that between May 2005 and December 2006, the Useltons obtained more than $4.6 million through the fraudulent scheme.
The SEC says the men were caught out when one of its own enforcement staff received one of the spam e-mails at work.
Along with the SEC, the Attorney General's Office for Texas and the Harris County District Attorney's Office have filed charges against the Useltons for engaging in organised criminal activity and money laundering. The Texas criminal authorities have also seized more than $4.2 million from bank accounts associated with the Useltons.
Commenting on the case, SEC chairman Christopher Cox, says: "The use of bots to spread investment spam at exponentially higher rates is making this type of fraud an even more virulent threat to ordinary investors. Not only are victims getting hit with get-rich-quick spam, but by turning the victims' computers into zombies, these fraudsters are sending out still more spam to others."
"Given estimates that up to one-quarter of all personal computers connected to the Internet are part of a botnet, and the thriving market in selling lists of compromised computers to hackers and spammers, the SEC is taking this very seriously," adds Cox.
US authorities have stepped up the fight against the hackers this year and in March prosecutors filed federal charges against three Indian nationals who allegedly hijacked online brokerage accounts in the US in order to conduct pump and dump scams.
Earlier the SEC obtained emergency court orders freezing funds contained in accounts held by a Latvia-based bank and an Estonian-based corporation that had allegedly been involved in market manipulation schemes. The regulator also suspended trading in 35 over-the-counter penny stocks that have been the subject of repeated spam e-mail campaigns.
Cox says the commission's anti-spam initiative "is intended to protect investors from fraud artists who would treat the investing public as their personal ATM machines".
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.finextra.com/Finextra-images/top_pics/liberty_stat...
Former Houston CEO indicted in stock scheme
July 14, 2007 - Posted at 12:00 a.m.
BY JUAN A. LOZANO - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/texas_news/story/89656.html
HOUSTON - The former chief executive of a now defunct Houston-based oil and gas company has been indicted on charges he devised a scheme to inflate the price and trading volume of his company's stock, federal prosecutors said Friday.
John N. Ehrman, 52, the former CEO of Rocky Mountain Energy Corp. is charged in a 13-count indictment with securities fraud and making false filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ehrman, of the Houston suburb The Woodlands, was arrested by FBI agents Friday morning and made his initial court appearance later in the day. His bond was set at $100,000.
His attorney, Donald Petrillo, declined to comment on the charges.
According to the indictment, Ehrman is accused of 10 counts of securities fraud for devising a scheme to inflate the price and trading volume of Rocky Mountain stock. He planned to profit by selling and directing others to sell and transfer shares issued under an obscure exemption to the registration provisions of federal securities laws, the indictment claims.
In the scheme, Ehrman allegedly signed separate agreements on behalf of Rocky Mountain to acquire small privately held oil and gas companies, or parts of the companies, in exchange for Rocky Mountain stock.
A Utah court issued orders finding that Rocky Mountain's plans to issue and exchange shares were fair to shareholders and owners of the acquired companies and did not constitute a public securities offering by Rocky Mountain.
The indictment alleges Ehrman caused Rocky Mountain to issue more than 46 million shares that had not been registered with the SEC. As part of the scheme, Ehrman caused Rocky Mountain to make false and misleading statements to the investing public, according to the indictment.
Ehrman allegedly received about $500,000 in proceeds from sales of Rocky Mountain shares during the scheme, which the indictment says took place between June 1, 2002 and April 3, 2003.
Ehrman also allegedly caused Rocky Mountain to not disclose to the public that the company issued tens of millions of shares of stock, which diluted the value of shares held by investors. Investors allegedly lost approximately $1.1 million during the scheme.
Ehrman is also accused of three counts of making false and misleading statements in reports and documents filed with the SEC.
He faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million if convicted.
Ehrman's indictment comes after the SEC prevailed in a civil complaint it had filed in 2003 against Rocky Mountain Energy and several company officials for false and misleading statements they made regarding the company's business and its operations.
http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/texas_news/story/89656.html
Hello and I hope we can bring this board to life now, Lots of things happening around the Many stock Markets these days and it seems Scams is a major player, Please feel free to post about any Known scams with "LINK" ref to the FACTS. I will work on getting this board up to date. Thanks and Remember .. Be careful out there! (Smile)
Huey
TOU Refresher
Off-topic: Any off-topic discussion is a violation of TOU. If your post is not about the stock for the board you're posting to, do not post it. Use email, private message, or post it to a board where it is on-topic.
Spam: Do not post the same or similar message on more than TWO boards. More than that is considered spam. Spam posts will be removed and repeated and/or egregious offenses may result in suspension of your posting privileges.
MEDP SEEMS LIEK A SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LAT ONE THEY DID WAS ABSD
Anybody know anything suspicious about CBAY ?
Anyone looked into the PDR Exchange thing going on with PNMS.PK?
It seems fishy!
Just wanted to say Nice Board. Too bad I didn't find this a year 1/2 ago. LOL. Good to see a place where the market scams are identified. GLTA
Just about everything :) Berman is a total scammer the only thing he has ever produced is more shares LOL. There is a fair bit of DD on RSDS on the Fact n Fiction Board if you want details.
I never looked too hard at RSDS cause it was an obvious scam and nothing interesting or odd. A few reverse spits at least IIRC and quite a dubious history.
EDIT--- LOL i just noticed the post i am replying to is a couple months old, oh well better late than never :)
Anybody know anything suspicious about RSDS
Looks kinda diluted imo but wanted to know if there's more to it.
PHLC not delisted
#msg-18387474
ORDER IMPOSING REMEDIAL SANCTIONS
On the basis of the Commission's opinion issued this day it is
ORDERED that the registration of Phlo Corporation as a transfer agent be, and it hereby is, revoked; and it is further
ORDERED that Anne P. Hovis be, and she hereby is, barred from associating with any registered transfer agent; and it is further
ORDERED that Phlo Corporation cease and desist from committing or being a cause of any violations or future violations of Sections 13(a), 17A(d)(1), and 17(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 13a-1, 13a-13, and 17Ad-2 thereunder; and it is further
ORDERED that James B. Hovis cease and desist from being a cause of any violations or future violations of Section 13(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 13a-1, 13a13 thereunder; and it is further
ORDERED that Anne P. Hovis cease and desist from committing or being a cause of any violations or future violations of Sections 17A(d)(1) and 17(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 17Ad-2 thereunder; and it is further
ORDERED that Anne P. Hovis pay civil money penalties of $100,000.
Payment of the civil money penalties shall be: (i) made by United States postal money order, certified check, bank cashier's check, or bank money order; (ii) made payable to the Securities and Exchange Commission; (iii) mailed or delivered by hand to the Office of Financial Management, Securities and Exchange Commission, Operations Center, 6432 General Green Way, Alexandria, VA 22312; and (iv) submitted under cover letter that identifies the respondent and the file number of this proceeding.
A copy of the cover letter and check shall be sent to Scott A. Masel, Division of Enforcement, Southeast Regional Office, Securities and Exchange Commission, 801 Brickell Ave., Suite 1800, Miami, FL 33131.
By the Commission.
Nancy M. Morris
Secretary
That post deserves to be on the Joke Board -- http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=30
Not sure what those people were on when they wrote that piece but it must have been some pretty good stuff
U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY ARRESTED IN GERMANY
PAULSON AND CHENEY SUBPOENAED BY TRIBUNAL
Saturday 30 December 2006 20:05
U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY HENRY M. PAULSON HAS BEEN ARRESTED IN EUROPE
SENTENCING INFLICTS EXTREME DISGRACE UPON THE UNITED STATES GENERALLY
U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY SEIZED AND BROUGHT BEFORE 'AD HOC' TRIBUNAL IN GERMANY ON A SUBPOENA HANDED OUT BY THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE [OR 'WORLD COURT'] ON CHARGES OF MONEY-LAUNDERING, NON-PAYMENT OF THE WANTA $4.5 TRILLION AND FOR MISAPPROPRIATION AND/OR DIVERSION OF COLOSSAL $ SUMS.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY LIKEWISE AT THE RECEIVING END OF PARALLEL SUBPOENA FOR SIMILAR CRIMINAL OFFENCE(S).
GERMAN AUTHORITIES EXERCISED THE INTERNATIONAL SUBPOENA, BRINGING PAULSON (AND CHENEY) UNDER GERMAN JURISDICTION, GIVEN THAT GERMAN BANKS TRYING TO MAKE THE WANTA PAYMENT WERE TWICE PREVENTED BY MR PAULSON FROM DOING SO. WHEN THIS HAPPENED THE SECOND TIME, PAULSON WAS ARRESTED.
PAULSON CHARGED WITH DIVERSION OF FUNDS AND WITH NON-PERFORMANCE OF WANTA’S $4.5 TRILLION: HE WAS ARRESTED AFTER SEEING MME ANGELA MERKEL, WHO WOULD OTHERWISE BE COMPLICIT IN THE $4.5 TRILLION THEFT (WHICH OF COURSE SHE IS NOT). BUT THAT WAS THE SITUATION.
ARREST CONFIRMED BY SEVEN SOURCES: KEY U.S. TREASURY OFFICIAL ORDERED TO GERMANY, SUBJECTED TO A GAG ORDER, AND INSTRUCTED TO TESTIFY AGAINST HIS OWN U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY. HE HAS BEEN IN GERMANY FOR THE PAST TWO WEEKS, TESTIFYING BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL, STAFF OF THE U.S. CONSULATE AND THE GERMAN ATTORNEY GENERAL (EQUIVALENT) ABOUT THE ENDLESSLY FRUSTRATED ATTEMPTS OF AMBASSADOR WANTA'S CORPORATION, TO OBTAIN RELEASE OF THE FUNDS, AND ABOUT ALLEGED CRIMINAL VIOLATIONS BY PAULSON, GOLDMAN SACHS AND COMPANY, ET AL.
THE U.S. ‘MAINSTREAM MEDIA’ ARE WITHHOLDING THE BIGGEST SCANDAL IN WORLD HISTORY FROM THE MUCH-ABUSED AMERICAN PEOPLE.
By Christopher Story FRSA, Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review, World Reports Limited, London and New York: www.worldreports.org. Press CLICK HERE and the ARCHIVE Button on the www.worldreports.org Home Page for Wanta Crisis reports since April 2006. Note: Due to NSA/CIA et al interference, some US users may find they can access worldreports.org directly, without the www. Mostly, www.worldreports.org provides access to our website at once.
US Treasury Secretary Paulson has been arrested by German authorities on a subpoena issued
by the International Court of Justice, and brought before an 'ad hoc' Tribunal accused of money-laundering, misappropriation/diversion of colossal amounts of money, and non-payment/non-performance on the $4.5 trillion Wanta Plan Settlement.
He has been sentenced to severe penalties [see below].
Henry M. Paulson's arrest by German authorities implementing the 'World Court' subpoena, took place on 23rd or 24th of December 2006.
Although we have been 'sitting on' this intelligence since the Christmas weekend, pending further information, we now have very high-level confirmations from both London and Washington, and a total of seven sources for this intelligence.
The basic details are as follows:
1. Records exist confirming that International Court of Justice subpoenas were issued against Henry M. Paulson, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and Vice President Richard Cheney, citing inter alia money-laundering, misappropriation or diversion of colossal amounts of money, and non-performance on the Wanta Plan Settlement funds of $4.5 trillion, subject of www.worldreports.org postings since June 2006. This is an inevitable consequence of the corruption exposed on this website over the Wanta Settlement, for the past six months and more.
2. A senior official within the US Treasury was placed under a gag order and was subpoenaed to travel to Germany to testify against Henry M. Paulson. The official has been in Germany for the past two weeks, testifying before US Consulate and Tribunal officials, and Germany's Attorney General. The subject of his testimony has been the struggle that Ambassador Leo Wanta and his corporate Treasurer, Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., have been having to endure, in order to procure payment of the $4.5 trillion Wanta Plan Settlement signed in May 2006 by the President of the United States, US Supreme Court Judges, and other prominent US parties, and warmly welcomed by the Group of Eight (G-8) countries in July 2006.
He has also been testifying in detail about the ransacking of funds that has been taking place in recent months, and the illegal activity over which Mr Henry M. Paulson has been presiding in this context. Mr Paulson, who has sole signatory power over Wanta's hijacked $4.5 trillion, was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs and Company, so that his behaviour represents the Grandfather of all US and international financial conflict-of-interest scandals.
3. The official was required to present the Tribunal with the comprehensive data contained within the 'data burst' issued by the US Treasury in November [see our earlier reports], which prove that instead of the 'data burst' providing for the Wanta Settlement payment, the funds were being stolen and secreted offshore.
4. THIS IS THE BIGGEST OFFICIAL FINANCIAL SCANDAL IN AMERICAN AND WORLD HISTORY. THE SUBPOENAED OFFICIALS (HENRY M. PAULSON AND RICHARD CHENEY) NOW HAVE THE FOLLOWING STRAIGHTFORWARD CHOICE:
• GO TO JAIL FOR AS MUCH AS 15 YEARS, POSSIBLY LONGER.
• RESTORE THE STOLEN FUNDS/PAY THE WANTA $4.5 TRILLION OVER WHICH PAULSON EXERCISES PERSONAL SOLE CONTROL AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED, AND BE DISMISSED OR STEP DOWN FROM OFFICE. THERE MAY FURTHER BE A PROVISION FOR PAULSON TO BE HELD FOR 12 MONTHS UNDER HOUSE ARREST.
5. AS NOTED BELOW, MR PAULSON DULY MET THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR, ANGELA MERKEL, AS SCHEDULED, ON 21ST DECEMBER, IN BERLIN. HE WAS SUBPOENAED SHORTLY AFTERWARDS [SEE ONE REASON FOR THE TIMING, BELOW], AND WAS THEN ARRESTED IN GERMANY ON 23RD OR 24TH DECEMBER [DATE TO BE CONFIRMED WHEN POSSIBLE].
6. IT WILL BE APPRECIATED THAT MADAME CHANCELLOR WAS LEFT WITH NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. ANY ATTEMPT ON HER PART (WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SUGGESTED) TO THWART THE SUPREME WILL OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE'S TRIBUNAL, WOULD HAVE MEANT THAT SHE WOULD HAVE BECOME COMPLICIT IN THE CRIMINAL FINANCIAL OPERATIONS IN QUESTION.
7. THE NUMBERED NOTES GIVEN PROMINENTLY HERE ARE BASED UPON INTELLIGENCE VERIFIED BY A SENIOR BRITISH SOURCE, AND BY A HIGH-LEVEL AMERICAN OFFICIAL WITH KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBPOENAED U.S. TREASURY OFFICIAL'S SCHEDULE AND TESTIMONY BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL IN GERMANY. THE TWO REPORTS COINCIDE ARE ARE VERIFIED BY OTHER SOURCES.
8. COLLECTIVELY, THESE DEVELOPMENTS REFLECT THE ANXIETY OF THE GROUP OF EIGHT [G-8] COUNTRIES TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE CATASTROPHIC MESS THAT MR PAULSON ET AL HAVE CREATED, GIVEN THAT THEIR FINANCIAL OPERATIONS HAVE (AS WE PREDICTED) NOW BROUGHT THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM TO THE BRINK OF MELTDOWN.
The rest of this report is just as relevant, but was prepared overnight 29th/30th December 2006, whereas the above numbered notes were incorporated upon receipt of this updated intelligence, at around 4.00pm UK time Saturday 30th December 2006.
The decisions of such an International Tribunal have to be adhered to, in practice, by an American official recipient of its sentencing. The German authorities have jurisdiction here because they exercised the International Court's subpoena. But semantic quibblings over actual jurisdiction are completely irrelevant in this context, because this development is a DARK BLACK STAIN upon the international financial reputation of the United States generally (unfortunately) and especially upon the Bush Administration, which appears to be descending into chaos because of its non-payment and non-performance on the $4.5 trillion.
We have seven separate sources for this information, including one very senior British Central Government source, two British intelligence confirmations, and three high-level well-placed US confirmations that Paulson’s arrest took place in recent days.
Since this dramatic development, Paulson has vanished from view.
A brief sanitised report about his meeting on 21st December with the German Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrueck, and with Chancellor Angela Merkel, appeared in several US newspapers, but there was no mention of his desperate plan to use the Wanta funds to pay 1% of $370 trillion of derivatives plus ninety-nine percent in the form of a Ten-Year Note, because this fantasy was ‘spiked’ by our last report.
We continue below our blow-by-blow diary of this unparalleled crisis, based on intelligence to hand at the time of this posting. Given that we are led to expect ‘further and better particulars’ about Mr Paulson’s arrest, indictment, counts, alleged plea-bargaining, sentencing. obligations and sudden disappearance, we will update this posting as and when continuing research, by ourselves and well-placed financial sector associates, delivers the further expected details of this latest ‘leg’ of the dramatic ‘unrolling of events’. We will not be responding to pressure from emailers to bring forward additional information until it is to hand, and has been appropriately verified.
U.S. OFFICIAL CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES CORNERED
What we are witnessing is the cornering of key US criminal operatives and the imminent collapse of the criminal empire that seized control of the US Federal Government and intelligence services many years ago.
This criminal empire is now on its last desperate legs, and is watching its corrupt edifice collapse at an accelerating pace, ‘as we speak’.
EUROPEAN NATIONAL CURRENCY REVIVAL GATHERS SPEED
One crucial by-product of this crisis, too, is that, as was exclusively reported in our previous posting, both France and Germany have started distributing pre-stored national banknotes (denominated in French francs and deutschemarks) to their respective central banks and leading commercial banks.
The Dutch authorities are now in the process of reintroducing Dutch guilder banknotes. We are also hearing unconfirmed reports of other EU countries introducing national banknotes, as the EU Governments hedge their bets against their Collective Currency experiment, the days of which are clearly numbered.
This shows that the EU countries (a) never had any real confidence in their Collective Currency;
(b) accordingly stored national banknotes against the possibility of a crisis such as has arisen as
a consequence of the ransacking of funds by US office-holders, which is impacting the EU; and
(c) were in fact individually and collectively engaged in a fraudulent operation. Now that national banknotes are reappearing, the European Collective Currency is doomed. The notes cannot be removed from circulation, as the general public will take fright and the crisis will develop runaway legs. The European press is waffling 'as we speak' about the impact of the Collective Currency on the new EU Members, without having caught on to the fact that the Collective Currency is being undermined by at least three of the EU national governments, which now fear that the derivatives crisis will destroy the Collective Currency as well as the US dollar. The Federal Reserve System has debt obligations in excess of $1,000 trillion, with the derivatives overhang (deceitfully estimated at $370 trillion) believed to aggregate at least $1,140 trillion.
GLOBAL WANTA CRISIS DIARY: CONTINUED:
Our diary format now resumes.
See how the crisis has developed since we last reported (on 19 December 2006):
18 December: Investigators assert that, on the basis of the situation currently prevailing [but see below] there appeared to be no way for the US Federal authorities or the US Treasury to compel the US Treasury Secretary, Mr Hank ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson, to cease and desist from his theft of the $4.5 trillion belonging to Ambassador Leo Emil Wanta and his Commonwealth of Virginia-based corporation, AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., and to compel him to pay the funds as required by the formal agreement dated May 2006 signed by the President of the United States, the Vice President, the key Supremes and top legislators. In other words they concur that the Rule of Law in the United States, which they spend their lives seeking to uphold, has collapsed. They accordingly agree that a holder of high office can steal, pillage, ransack and lie as he pleases with impunity [again, see below]…
18 December: The Editor of International Currency Review writes from New York to Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, enclosing a copy of International Currency Review, Volume 31, Numbers 3 and 4 and the Wisconsin Taxation Gestapo Supplement, as follows:
Bundeskanzleramt
Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel
Willi-Brandt Strasse 1
10557 BERLIN, Germany
Madame Chancellor
At the request of Ambassador Leo Emil Wanta, I am enclosing herewith a copy of the latest issue of International Currency Review [Volume 31, Numbers 3 and 4], published in London, UK, which deals exclusively with the global crisis surrounding the failure of the US Treasury to credit the securities account at Morgan Stanley in New York of Ambassador Wanta with the $4.5 trillion hard dollar cash Settlement funds, in accordance with the formal agreement dated May 2006 signed by the President of the United States and other US holders of high office.
These funds have been diverted and are held, tagged in the name of the Ambassador and his Virginia-based corporation, AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., in a US Treasury account with Goldman Sachs and Company, which has been retaining and exploiting these funds illegally.
Henry M. Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, who used to be C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, has sole signatory authority over this account at Goldman Sachs that holds the diverted funds.
The Ambassador would be grateful if you would have your staff read and absorb the postings to be found at our website, www.worldreports.org [Home Page ARCHIVE and CLICK HERE reports], which give details of how this crisis has developed since last June.
The journal and the www.worldreports.org postings are specifically relevant and of notice to your forthcoming meeting with Henry M. Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Story, Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review,
World Reports Limited, London & New York.
19 December: Associates of Ambassador Leo Wanta and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S. , Executive Vice President and Treasurer of AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., advise that a colossal volume of US dollars is being monitored moving from Barclays Bank in the United Kingdom, to Deutsche Bank in Germany. The funds were allegedly to be used inter alia to pay down derivatives debt of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries, in accordance with the outline scheme for 1% of the inaccurately stated volume of derivatives debt outstanding ($370 trillion) to be paid out, with the remaining ninety-nine percent to be covered by a Ten-Year Note to be issued by the US Treasury under Mr Hank Paulson.
19 December: Meanwhile the G-8 banks are continuing to pressurise the US Treasury and the US Government to pay The Wanta Plan Settlement of the $4.5 trillion. As previously explained in these postings, the Settlement would let the banks off the hook. But the way things are going at present, Ambassador Wanta will own many of the leading banks in the United States and Europe, since they hold vast sums belonging to the Ambassador, as revealed in the recently published double issue of International Currency Review [Volume 31, Numbers 3 and 4]. The list of banks holding Wanta’s accounts, published in the journal and in our posting dated 26th October 2006, is repeated below.
19 December: Mr Henry ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson, former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, which is illegally holding on to Wanta’s $4.5 trillion and over which Paulson holds sole signatory power in the most obscene conflict of professional interest ever witnessed in global banking history, TO THE DISGRACE OF THE UNITED STATES GENERALLY, states openly that he will have no direct contact with Ambassador Wanta or Michael C. Cottrell, M.S.. However he also confirms earlier reports that he is ‘not sleeping well due to this mess’, which is of course entirely of his own making.
19 December: Chinese authorities indicate that they seek to limit China’s exposure to the United States’ financial and US dollar problems, but are ready to enter to an agreement and working arrangement with Ambassador Wanta and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S. through their AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., based in the Commonwealth of Virginia [details at foot of posting].
19 December: Associates of the Ambassador and Mr Cottrell advise that President George W. Bush has had harsh words with James Baker III.
19 December: As we reported in the previous posting, the French and German Governments have begun reissuing national currency (French francs and deutschemarks) to their respective central and national banks. The Dutch authorities have since joined them, and are reissuing Dutch guilder banknotes. We are hearing reports of other EU countries reintroducing national banknotes.
The significance of this development, stressed in the preceding posting, requires further decisive emphasis. The stocks of national banknotes now being distributed had been held in store, pending the possibility that the European Collective Currency might fail. It hasn’t failed yet, but the sudden reappearance of national banknotes spells the end of the Collective Currency, and probably, over the medium term, of the European Union Collective itself.
Because these national banknotes were held in national storage all along, the collectivisation of EU currencies was manifestly fraudulent. If the Governments concerned had had absolute faith in their Collective Currency, they would not have taken the trouble to ensure that national banknotes were kept in store, against a crisis environment such as has developed consequent upon the theft of the $4.5 trillion under the US Treasury Secretary, Mr ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson, and the global financial crisis that has been ignited as result of his behaviour.
19 December: Key European countries also make it clear that they see no need to meet with Mr Paulson, given his appalling corruption, which remains the primary subject of ongoing discussion among intelligence services and governments worldwide. In the event, the German Chancellor and the German Finance Minister, Peer Steinbrueck, are reported [21st December: see below] to have met Paulson briefly in Berlin, but press reports [e.g. Boston Globe] concerning the meeting turn out to be sparse and essentially meaningless, as though the full truth is not being told…
19 December: Certain investigators suggest that relevant funds have been transferred. But there is no sign of the necessary transfers on bank screens.
20 December: A letter is issued, via an associate of Leo Emil Wanta's AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., to Chinese Government Ministers, seeking their approval of the proposed transactional agreement with the Ambassador’s AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc.
20 December: Investigators advise that the Vatican is demanding exact specifications concerning the alleged transfer of funds that investigators said had taken place on 19th December. The Vatican is livid that it has been lied to.
20 December: An Attorney associated with AmeriTrust Groupe, informs the Ambassador and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S. that Senator Grassley’s office staff have commented that ‘$4.5 trillion is too much money for one person’. This tired refrain has been heard on and off for several months, but it is malicious and irrelevant on three counts. First, Ambassador Wanta is just about the ONLYexpert individual in the United States who can definitively be trusted to handle the $4.5 trillion Settlement funds conscientiously and honestly: no-one else on the stage could be trusted with such funds.
So what this imputation means is that those giving vent to this assertion are inverting the situation: they know that they themselves could never be trusted with such funds, so they seek to imply that the Ambassador cannot be trusted either – which is a libellous implied accusation, given that the Ambassador’s record is impeccable, not least as clearly revealed in International Currency Review Volume 31, 3 and 4 [distributed in December 2006].
Secondly, this malicious statement seeks to undermine the formal agreement signed by the US ‘Great and the Good’ in May 2006. The short answer to this piece of insolence is that if the Ambassador had not been precisely the person who CAN be trusted, the Settlement agreement would never have been signed. Thirdly, if Mr Grassley ever had genuine reservations, he should have made his position known before the accord was signed in May 2006. To seek to undermine it (which he cannot do) after the event is facile, shifty disingenuous and duplicitous.
20 December: President Bush admits that he will have to pay Ambassador Wanta/AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., as he needs the money for Iraq.
20 December: Certain US bankers, petrified that they will be named personally in AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc. and World Reports postings because of their complicity in the criminal financial operations that we are uncovering almost ‘in real time’, resort to the familiar behaviour of crooks and bullies, and start attacking certain investigators. They fear that they will be fired or may be indicted for conspiracy to defraud AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc.; and indeed the longer that these abominations continue, the greater the likelihood that they will indeed be slammed: and rightly so.
20 December: All of a sudden, President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney are letting it be known that they are trying to satisfy the payment of the $4.5 trillion earmarked for The Wanta Plan, tagged in the name of the Ambassador and his AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc. and which is located at Goldman Sachs in a C.H.I.P.S. account with Citibank. In addition to their need for funds ‘for Iraq’, the evolution of events herein is also being taken into serious consideration at the highest levels.
20 December: European associates advise that certain Talk Shows in Europe, as well as surveys among bankers and officials, indicate support for the Wanta Plan, concurring that ‘Leo Wanta and Cottrell are not crazy and should be paid’. No-one in banking or official circles has ever suggested as much: absurdities like that are the speciality of second-rate, intelligence-linked operatives posing as objective commentators on Internet websites.
20 December: In fulfilment of a longstanding intention, which was postponed some years earlier, Iran is reported to be accepting the European Collective Currency in lieu of US dollars, in payment for its exported petroleum. (The way things are going, the Iranians will probably start accepting deutschemarks or French francs once these national currencies are traded again, as seems now to be only a matter of time. The clock cannot be put back again: the national currencies released into national circulation cannot be scooped up and put back into store. The genie is out of the bottle and the days of the EU Collective Currency are numbered. This was never intended at the outset of this crisis, but it has happened).
20 December: Democratic Party insiders advise associates of Ambassador Wanta and Mr Cottrell that Mr Hank’ Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson will soon be dismissed due to his non-payment of the $4.5 trillion and his non-performance. But as will be seen below, the White House and Treasury are now completely at the mercy of the cascading events that Paulson’s criminality has unleashed.
Specifically…
21 December: Associates of Ambassador Wanta and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S. advise that given the insistent demands from Group of Eight (G-8) countries for the agreed Wanta Plan Settlement to be implemented forthwith, and given Mr Paulson’s criminal non-performance, the White House seems to be in complete disarray, with no-one in that building having the slightest idea what to do, even though they know very well what they have to do.
22 December: Associates of Ambassador Wanta and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., advise that American Treasury personnel have completed test runs with respect to the prospective US dollar deficits for 2007, and that the results consistently reveal the prospect of deficits that will be much higher than predictions, and that the numbers are considered to be ‘very scary’.
It will of course be recalled from our earlier postings that if The Wanta Plan had been implemented with effect from June or early July 2006 as originally intended (before Paulson diverted the funds), the US Treasury would ALREADY have accrued tax windfall income of the order of $13-$14 trillion, so that the kinds of numbers that US Treasury boffins have been looking at ARE COMPLETELY INEXCUSABLE, AND REPRESENT A GROSS DERELICTION OF OFFICIAL DUTY ON THE PART OF THE PRESENT U.S. ADMINISTRATION, GIVEN THE ‘UNIVERSAL’ FINANCIAL SOLUTION TO THE UNITED STATES’ GHASTLY FINANCING PROBLEMS REPRESENTED BY THE WANTA PLAN.
The US Treasury Secretary has sabotaged the Treasury’s own finances, perpetuating the US deficit financing orgy when it should have taken the corrective action agreed in May 2006.
• The EURONEXT electronic settlement system will be operational and will be heavily used immediately it comes on stream on 1st January, providing the Rest of the World with yet another reason to abandon the self-inflicted US financial morass.
22 December: In a separate exercise, investigators perform a detailed examination of the factors surrounding non-payment of the Wanta Settlement, taking into account the actions of the White House Chief of Staff (Josh Bolten) and President George W. Bush himself. They conclude that everyone and everything pointed directly to Mr Henry’ Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson being, to employ the phrase used, ‘at the apex of the screw-up’. (This was apparent many postings ago).
22 December: Associates of AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., assert that Paulson has been advised by ‘high authorities’ that ‘he will be protected’. British intelligence sources carefully advise the Editor of International Currency Review that Mr ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson ‘works for George Bush Sr.’.
22 December: Ambassador Leo Wanta writes to James Baker III, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, President George W. Bush Jr., Vice President Richard Cheney, US Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Henry M. Paulson himself, First Lady Laura Bush, Mrs Lynn Cheney, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, and other senior officials, offering the expert services of Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., as Treasurer of AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc, to assist the Office of the President in a practical manner with the simple resolution of this crisis. Mr Wanta’s straightforward letter reiterates that: ‘We at AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., stand ready and capable to regenerate the Department of the Treasury, without further questionable delay ‘of others}. Mr President, just simply call Mike at 814-874 3257 and we [can] move discreetly forward without needless fanfare and political situations’.
The Ambassador concludes with appropriate Christmas greetings to the President and his family.
22 December: Investigators advise that FIVE German banks are now ready to disburse funds, and that all they need is Mr Henry Paulson’s approval.
[Note: The German banks, like those in all the other G-8 countries and beyond, are DESPERATE for this matter to be settled once and for all, so that the underlying $27.5 trillion which is OWNED BY Ambassador Wanta and resident in the myriad bank accounts relisted below are, not called. They are aware that moves have been made since early December for the banks’ illegally held Wanta funds to be handed over, and they seek to hold on to them (or rather to covert their own illegal financing operations to a form of international ‘legality’) in order to remain afloat].
22 December: MR HENRY M. PAULSON IS REPORTED BY ASSOCIATES OF THE AMBASSADOR TO BE SUBJECT TO AN INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE SUBPOENA INTER ALIA FOR NON-PAYMENT OF THE $4.5 TRILLION TO AMERITRUST GROUPE, INC., AS AGREED IN MAY 2006.
[On 24th December, British intelligence informed the Editor of International Currency Review as follows: ‘I have heard that he (Paulson) was caught red-handed and that he may have been brought before an informal tribunal… I cannot therefore confirm the intelligence at this time, save as to Paulson’s imminent retirement, but I will make further inquiries’. On 27th December, the same UK intelligence source elaborated that: ‘Ad hoc tribunal very likely, 12 months’ house arrest and resignation being talked about: he should go early in the New Year’. On 29th December, UK intelligence repeated that this information was being widely discussed in intelligence circles].
22 December: Investigators advise that Paulson DIRECTLY STOPPED THE TRANSFER OF $4.5 TRILLION FROM THE GOLDMAN SACHS C.H.I.P.S. ACCOUNT TO THE SECURITIES ACCOUNT OF AMERITRUST GROUPE, INC., WITH MORGAN STANLEY IN NEW YORK.
22 December: Associates advise that certain powerful British official figures are extremely concerned about Paulson’s non-payment of the $4.5 trillion to AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., having finally realised that the official sabotaging of agreed payments jeopardises the continued fragile viability of the international financial system generally.
The relevant UK figures (MPs and officials) are reported to have strongly advised the US Government that Mr Paulson needs to be dismissed. The implication is that they fear that his criminal behaviour may call the viability of the entire international financial system into question: and in this, they are dead right.
(Memo to the MPs and officials concerned: We could have used your assistance months ago, when we were fighting this battle for global financial integrity, sanity and a decisive end to international money corruption almost entirely alone).
22 December: Investigators file an official report to the US Government confirming the non-payment of the $4.5 trillion Wanta Plan Settlement funds, and the theft of the funds within the US Treasury/Federal Reserve System.
The scandal has therefore reached, shall we say, ‘an advanced stage of maturity’, and now has the clear potential to bring the mesmerised Bush II Administration to its knees.
This was never anyone's intention. If a collapse occurs, it will be entirely the fault of the criminal cadres' seizure of the Wanta Settlement funds.
24 December: Another ‘Wanta can’t be trusted to handle $4.5 trillion’ whammy, this time from ignorant White House officials trying belatedly to justify their collective criminality. ‘Leo Wanta’, they say, 'is not qualified to handle that sort of money’. How curious, then, that he was entrusted (a) with handling the $27.5 trillion raised from 200+ international banks in 1989-92 and (b) with a United Nations contract worth $5 trillion (stolen from him by the Clintons [continued below].
[This took place after they had collaborated with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue to ‘take Wanta down’ for non-payment of an illegally-raised State tax charge of $14,129 which he had paid TWICE under protest: see the 24-page ICR Supplement distributed worldwide with International Currency Review, Volume 31, Numbers 3 and 4, entitled Wisconsin Taxation Gestapo Fraud. This proves gross corruption by the Wisconsin tax authorities, and virtually assures that this State will have to be taken over in due course by a Federal Trust, not least since the tax authorities there may be scamming innumerable other State taxpayers as well as the Ambassador.
AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS: Notwithstanding that Leo has paid the illegal tax demand for $14,129 THREE TIMES already, the Wisconsin tax authorities issued a further demand for the SAME amount on 30th October 2006. In December 2006, International Currency Review published the 24-page Supplement which PROVES Wisconsin State tax fraud in this case. On 30th December, Ambassador Leo Wanta received yet ANOTHER demand for THE SAME (itemised) $14,129.00 illegally charged but paid TWICE under protest in 1992, and paid a third time in July 2005.
We will have to post a description of the Wisconsin State Tax Gestapo Fraud and how it has been perpetuated, at an appropriate opportunity, because it seems that the step-by-step, diagrammatic presentation in the Supplement has not yet penetrated the thick skulls of the corrupt Wisconsin Department of Revenue's officials, notably a Mr Frazier. The Editor spoke to this apparatchik in November and pointed out that the illegally charged $14,129 had been paid under protest THREE TIMES ALREADY; whereupon Mr Frazier, the Department's audit chief said TWICE: 'I'll have to look into it'. He obviously didn't. So this dimension of the corruption crisis will have to be tackled with renewed vigour, starting with an expose replicating the fraudit trail from the Supplement].
Of course, the officials at the White House who are reverting to this alibi [see above] have had access to the special double issue of International Currency Review, so they have no excuse at all for their stupidity and arrogance on this score. They risk being named along with corrupt bankers (see below) if this matter is not brought to a speedy overdue conclusion.
27 December: While investigators and associates of the Ambassador and Mr Cottrell advise that ‘there will be very little activity this week, with the funds supposedly to be moved during the first week of 2007, British intelligence sources advise the Editor of International Currency Review that, on the contrary, frenetic trading activity has been monitored during the holidays.
27 December: Associates of Ambassador Wanta and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., advise that non-payment of The Wanta Plan Settlement, which was the main topic of behind-the-scenes discussions at the St Petersburg Group of Eight (G-8) Summit last July, is now the talk of the entire world among intelligence, government and banking circles – everywhere, that is, with the single exception of the United States, where the controlled and compliant ‘mainstream media’ has lacked the bottle to report the biggest financial/corruption crisis facing the American Republic since its Revolution.
27 December: Associates of the Ambassador, Mr Cottrell, and the Editor advise separately that Mr Henry Paulson was arrested in Germany and brought before an ‘Ad Hoc Tribunal’ under German jurisdiction. An earlier report stated that he was seized and placed in shackles, hauled before the Tribunal, and sentenced to the equivalent of ten years’ incarceration on a tariff of one year per count, but that he had lawyers ‘plea-bargain’ the counts down so that he was sentenced to one year’s house arrest, must resign his post (or be sacked) , and must pay the $4.5 trillion Settlement.
27 December: The United Arab Emirates starts selling 8% of its US dollar holdings, an amount thought to be worth $25 billion, in exchange for Euros.
27 December: It is confirmed to the Ambassador from Vienna that the Austrian Government will be pleased to accept a windfall taxation payment of $1.575 trillion by way of full satisfaction of the corporate tax payable on Wanta’s $4.5 trillion. At 50%, the Austrian Government could extract $2.25 trillion, but this offer is made at this time in order to confirm that it will be happy to proceed as we first reported on 2nd October, since the US Treasury seems reluctant to accept the $1.575 trillion which will become payable immediately on remittance of the Settlement. The Austrian Government lodges this claim in response to Leo Wanta’s earlier offer, given the US Government’s criminal non-performance. It will be recalled that Ambassador Leo Wanta has been a legal resident (approved by the Austrian Court) of the Republic of Austria since June 1988. It is therefore open to Mr Wanta to reside in Austria and to conduct his affairs from that country.
28 December: We now begin to hear talk, via a CIA Attorney associated with the Ambassador, of another reason that is being wheeled out to ‘justify’ the official criminality retrospectively – namely that the Ambassador, Mr Cottrell and AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc, will become ‘too powerful’. This latest alibi is on a par with the ‘Leo Wanta can’t handle $4.5 trillion’ ruse, and is susceptible to the same criticism. In particular, Senators and others bringing forward this alibi are far too late. They should, like Senator Grassley, have made their views known earlier, before the May 2006 agreement was signed off. Where have they been all these months? Have their staffers and the spooks embedded with them been withholding the facts from them? Answer: You bet. They need to weed out these enemies of America PDQ. In any case, this belated alibi depends for any validity upon the unspoken and libellous assumption that Ambassador Wanta is not to be trusted (like them).
• The reverse is of course the case: he is the ONLY man who can be trusted to handle such funds appropriately, as his record (exposed in International Currency Review) manifestly shows, to all who are not deliberately sitting on their brains. It is typical of those with warped mentalities to transfer their own weaknesses on to their 'enemies'.
28 December: Associates of the Ambassador and Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., confirm that high-level written British representations have been made directly to the White House, demanding payment of the Wanta Plan Settlement in full. The strong implication is that if this matter is not resolved without further delay, there is going to be an almighty open financial and global economic crisis, rather than the crisis remaining contained (just) within official, intelligence and banking circles, as has been the case to date. Note that the British are DEMANDING settlement, not ASKING.
28 December: European associates inform AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc., that the letter dated 15th December to the White House and our posting dated 19th December has created a firestorm in Europe. Ambassador Wanta and Mr Cottrell are becoming quite widely known, are being discussed on Talk Shows, and are receiving coverage in the French press.
28 December: In a further sign of the earth moving beneath the criminal fraternity in Washington, huge chunks of gold bullion and US dollars (with an estimate of an initial tranche worth $45 billion) have been transferred from China to British custody, for the purpose of asset diversification, as the Chinese authorities set about seeking to diversify their US dollar holdings.
28 December: Given the now certain demise of the Federal Reserve System [see previous posting], it is confirmed that an Act of Congress will be passed to delete all references to the Federal Reserve from all dollar bills.
• Memo to the new Congress: Please make sure that when you do this, you DELETE the offensive occult images from the $1.0 bill, which cause immense offence to millions of Americans. This would be the greatest gift you could give to the United States, which, when the Wanta Settlement is effective, will turn a corner and will enter an entirely new phase of prosperity characterised by the systematic paydown of the US Treasury’s colossal background debt, thought to exceed $50 trillion (if all categories of official debt are properly computed).
Furthermore, final payment and initiation of the Wanta Plan $4.5 trillion will represent a decisive break with the corrosive environment of official criminality which is well on the way to destroying the American Republic, as we have pointed out in earlier reports. We will see how weak and feeble this new Congress is going to be, or whether it will rise to the challenge it faces. If it does, it will certainly go down in history as the most historic Congress since the Republic's foundation.
28 December: Experts confirm that all assets of the US Federal Reserve are on the auction block in Europe for a total value of $450 billion, ALTHOUGH THE FED’S DEBTS ACTUALLY EXCEED $1,000 TRILLION. As previously mentioned, the estimated correct size of the derivatives overhang is of the order of $1,140 trillion.
The Fed's assets are being sold off in a pre-closure 'Fire Sale'.
28 December: Colossal volumes of US dollar-denominated funds have been covertly sent from US banks to ISRAELI BANKS by Goldman Sachs and Company and Mr Henry ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson, one purpose being to hide funds from Ambassador Wanta. The idea is that these funds can be frozen in Israel, on the assumption that the US would never go to war with that country.
Sources raise the question as to whether Mr Paulson has fled to Israel. There has been no confirmation of this.
28 December: Additional amounts of dollar funds are stated by investigators to be in place ready to be paid out via Citibank to bank accounts in Paraguay, held in the names of current US holders of high office. This gives credence to detailed reports which have been circulating for many weeks, concerning the purchase by Bush family interests of a 100,000 acre property in Paraguay, which is conveniently located adjacent to a US military installation, the Mariscal Estigarribia Air Base to which US Special Forces have access, and where US military assets are based. It is also adjacent
to a huge tract of land purchased by Sun Myung Moon which sits astride the Guarani aquifer, the largest in Latin America.
This ‘inside financial information’ suggests that the ‘Paraguay option’ is now being geared up for realisation, so that the Bush Family (real name of George Bush Sr.: Scherff) can escape. Before the emergence of this information, we were reluctant to incorporate this dimension into our blow-by-blow reports on this millennial crisis. But it now seems more than likely that, having ransacked all possible funds, these crooks have prepared for themselves a heavily defended bolt-hole. This seems extremely stupid, given that a US Government of a different persuasion would, in such circumstances, be perfectly entitled to invade Paraguay to seize the criminals and bring them to trial, as well as to procure access to their stolen assets.
28 December: Attorney Thomas E. Henry writes to The Honorable George W. Bush Jr., President, United States of America, White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20220: Transmitted by email attachment and United States mail:
Re: Apparent Circumvention and Avoidance of Agreed Upon Financial Settlement regarding Leo E. Wanta/Lee E. Wanta and AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc.
Dear Mr. President:
It is respectfully requested that immediate attention be given to the matter addressed in this letter. Irrespective of participation and knowledge of the referenced settlement agreement by several American and foreign interests, (both in the public and private sector), official(s) in your Administration are pursuing an agenda contrary to the 'rule of law' and in direct circumvention
of the agreed upon settlement.
The Honorable Henry M. Paulson, Jr., United States Department of the Treasury, is either unilaterally and/or in conspiracy with others (known and unknown), refusing to follow the 'rule
of law' and complete financial obligations negotiated and approved by all concerned parties and parties of interest in the referenced ("Re") matter.
On December 15, 2006 Secretary Paulson was advised in writing that failure to comply with terms and conditions of the agreed upon settlement constitutes a violation of the Securities Acts of 1933, 1934 and the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, specifically R.I.C.O. Additionally, Secretary Paulson was advised of H.R. 3723 that summarily provides that corporate business activity is protected under the Economic and Industrial Espionage Laws of the United States of America
and the International Economic Community.
All concerned parties are aware that Secretary Paulson, under his personal signature, has control over referenced settlement agreement funds located at Goldman Sachs, et. al., (C.H.I.P.S.) account with CITIBANK NYC. It is believed that Secretary Paulson, in violation of his oath of office when accepting a position in your Cabinet with responsibility to the United States Department of the Treasury, is avoiding his legal and ethical obligations to complete the transfer of the referenced settlement agreement funds and apparently favoring a private business relationship with his previous employer. This conflict of interest position and Secretary Paulson's former relationship with Goldman Sachs provides the formidable basis for the assertion of a violation of the Securities Acts and Organized Crime Control Act of 1970.
This matter requires your immediate intervention and direction to enable mitigation of a very volatile situation with the potential of serious impact on the global economy. The principals in this matter continually reaffirm their allegiance to the United States of America and specifically the office of the President of the United States.
Sincerely yours, Thomas E. Henry.
Copied to: President of the United States George W. Bush Jr., president@whitehouse.gov;
Vice President Cheney, vice_president@whitehouse.gov; Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Patrick.j.fitzgerald@doj.gov; James A. Baker III, bipp@rice.edu; Ambassador Lee E. Wanta;
Michael C. Cottrell, M.S., treasurere, AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc.
29 December: Reliable investigative sources inform Mr Cottrell that if Paulson fails to effect the Wanta payment in short order, he risks being rearrested anywhere outside the United States and slammed without further ado into a European prison for 15 years. High-level UK parliamentary and Downing Street sources confirm that the US Treasury Secretary has been arrested and sentenced.
The highest-level UK source indicates his intention of obtaining the Tribunal Court documents, which will be available shortly. Thanks to this statement, we obtain final definitive confirmation of the arrest. (By now, we have acquired seven separate sources, one of which we cannot begin to identify at this time. Two are in the process of obtaining documentary details, which may or may not be made available in time for posting. It is not known whether such documentation will be available for posting at all: this depends upon sources and what is legally permitted).
29 December: Since Goldman Sachs and Company has been engaged in criminal financial retention and exploitation of Ambassador Leo Emil Wanta’s funds without his approval, the Board of Directors of that institution are severally and collectively responsible for this criminal financial activity, in collaboration with Mr Henry ‘Conflict-of-Interest’ Paulson, their former C.E.O. himself.
As of November 2006, the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs and Company consisted of the following individuals and operatives: Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Gary D. Cohn, President and Co-Chief Operating Officer; John Winkelried, President and Chief Operating Officer; Lord Brown of Madingley, Chairman of British Petroleum; John H. Bryan; Claes Dahlback; Stephen Friedman; William W. George; Rajat K. Gupta; James A. Johnson; Lois D. Jubiler; Edward M. Liddy; Ruth J. Simmons; and John F. W. Rogers, Secretary to the Board.
29 December: A British Airways jet conveying Tony Blair and most of his family to Miami, encounters an ‘accident’ on arrival at Miami Airport over the Christmas holidays. Blair’s intelligence profile reveals him to be afraid of flying. The Editor is informed that this ‘incident’ was NOT an accident.
Blair has been under pressure to leave Downing Street and ‘should have left’ by the end of March 2006. He and members of his family were reported to be staying at the Miami home of one Robin Gibb, said to be a ‘Bee Gees’ pop ‘star’. The Times, London [29th December] describes Mrs Gibb as ‘a bisexual Druid priestess from Northern Ireland’, which seems about the Prime Minister’s level.
• He is supposed to be in Miami ‘on holiday’, but in reality he is allegedly engaged in financial negotiations and operations in the heart of US criminal country, where various well-known high-level and military-linked crooks operate. It is unlikely that he is ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ as the top British Government official who sent that Memo to the White House DEMANDING immediate settlement of The Wanta Plan payment.
INTERNATIONAL BANKS HOLDING AMBASSADOR WANTA’S ASSETS
In case the massive proportions of the problem collectively facing banks that have been using Ambassador Leo Wanta’s base $27.5 trillion to stay afloat is not yet sufficiently well understood, we conclude with a repeat of the list of banks holding Wanta assets, taken from our posting dated 26th October 2006. This list is compiled from the list of banks and Wanta financial transactions to be found on pages 306-309 of International Currency review, Volume 31, Numbers 3 & 4 [480 pages]. The relevant banking etc documents are reproduced on pages 310 to 430.
AB Invest [Avenue Banque]
ABN-AMRO Bank N.V., Amsterdam,
Agape Holdings, Ltd, Barbados
Agricultural Bank of China
Algemene Spaar-en Lufrentenkas
Algemene Spaar-en Lufrentenkas/ASLK Bank
Altalanos Eriekforgalmi Bank Rt (AEB RT)
Amsouth Bank, N.A
Amur Commercial Bank, Moscow
Anglo Manx Bank Limited
Arab Jordan Investment Bank
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Limited, Melbourne
Bacob Savings Bank, Borgerhout, Belgium
Banca di Roma, Rome
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
Banco Ambrosiano Veneto
Banco Espanol de Credito, S.A., Madrid
Banco Espirito Santo e Comerciale de Lisboa, Lisbon
Banco Exterior de Espana, Madrid
Banco Hispano Americano
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
Bank ‘UKRAINA’, Kiev, Ukraine
Bank Bruxelles Lambert
Bank Crozier Limited, Grenada [closed down, money stolen]
Bank Dumesnil, Geneva
Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of the USSR, Moscow
Bank of America
Bank of America International, New York
Bank of America, Milan
Bank of America, Newport Beach, CA
Bank of America, Vienna, Austria
Bank of China
Bank of New York, New York
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd, Tokyo
Bank Union de Crédit
Bankers Trust GmbH, Frankfurt
Banque Nationale de Paris
Banque Paribas (Luxembourg) S.A
Banque SCS ALLIANCE Geneva
Banque Suisse de Crédit et de Dépôts, Zürich
Barclays Bank, Hanover Square, London
CBI-TDB Union Bancaire Privée, Geneva
Chase Manhattan Bank N.A., London,
Chase Manhattan Bank, Milan
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York
Chase Manhattan Bank, Vienna
Chemical Bank of New York
Citibank – Frankfurt
Citibank – Geneva
Citibank – Los Angeles
Citibank – Milan
Citibank – New York
Citibank – Singapore
Citibank – Tokyo
Citibank – Vienna, Austria
Citibank, N.A., Philippines
Citicorp/Citibank
Citicorp/Citibank, London, Painewebber, Inc
Clydesdale Bank Plc
Commercial Bank ‘Moldova-Agroindbank’, S.A., Kishinev
Coutts Bank (Switzerland) Ltd
Coutts Bank, London
Crédit Lynonnais Bank Nederland NV, Amsterdam
Crédit Suisse Bank
Crédit Suisse Bank, Geneva
Crédit Suisse Bank, Lausanne
Crédit Suisse First Boston, Zürich
Credobank (Commercial Bank)
DBS Bank/Development Bank of Singapore: This bank was closed down by the Singapore authorities and $70 billion belonging to/controlled by Ambassador Wanta was stolen in the process.
Dean Witter Reynolds
Den Norske Bank AS, Oslo
Deutsche Bank, Düsseldorf
Dresdner Bank, Frankfurt
Faroe Investments
FIDENAS AG, Zürich, Switzerland
Générale de Banque
Gosbank, USSR
Handels Bank AG, Zürich
Handelsbank Natwest, Zürich
Hansabank, Talinn, Estonia
Joint Stock Bank ‘Kazkommertsbank’, Almaty
Jugobanka D.D
Lloyds Bank Plc
Lloyds Bank Plc, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
[funds placed in the personal name of Jan Morton Heger]
Manufacturers Hanover Corporation/Mantrust
Marshall and Ilsley Bank
Merita Bank, Helsinki
Merrill Lynch Inc
Midland Bank Plc, London
Morgan Guaranty & Trust Bank, New York
Morgan Stanley and Co, New York
Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd, Hong Kong
Moscow Cooperative Bank 'Partner' Bank
Moscow Narodny Bank Ltd, Singapore
Mosstrolbank, AmeriTrust Corporation Inc.
National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent,
National Westminster Bank
National Westminster Bank of New Jersey
National Westminster Bank Plc., Herne Bay, Kent
Nomura Singapore Limited
Nordbanken AB, Stockholm
Northern Trust International Banking Corporation
Norwest Bank, N.A
Ost-West Handelsbank, Frankfurt
Painewebber, Inc
Paribas (Suisse) S.A., Geneva
Philadelphia International Bank
Prudential Securities, New York
Raffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich, Vienna
Raffeisenbank Appenzell
Rafffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG [RBZ], Singapore
Relvnesheconombank, Minsk
Rigas Komerc Banka, Riga, Latvia
Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
Royal Trust Bank
Sanwa Bank Limited
Sanwa Bank Lt, Düsseldorf
Schweizerische Bankgesellshaft /Union Bank of Switzerland
Security Pacific Asia Bank, Ltd
Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc., Denver
Société Générale, Paris
Société Générale, Riga, Latvia
Southwest Securities, Inc
Standard Chartered Bank, Philippines
State Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs for Turkmenistan
Status-Credit Bank, Moscow
Swiss Banking Corporation
Swiss Volksbank, Zürich
Texas Commerce Bank, Dallas
Toronto Dominion Bank
Unibank A.S., Copenhagen
Union Bank of Switzerland, Geneva
Union Bank of Switzerland, Zürich
Vilniaus Bank AS, AB, Vilnius, Lithuania
Volksbank, Bonn, Germany
Volksbank, Offerdingen, Germany
Westdeutsche Landesbank, Düsseldorf, Germany
Zentralsparkasse und Kommerzialbank, Vienna.
*Self-evidently, some of these institutions have since been absorbed into other institutions, have been rebranded, or have otherwise become successor organisations since Wanta was illegally ‘taken down’ 1993. The successor organisations are responsible for the Wanta Title 18, Section 6 corporate accounts and the assets they contain, inherited from the institutions that merged with them. Comprehensive details of the ACTUAL TRANSACTIONS, BANK ACCOUNTS AND COORDINATES, has been published in International Currency Review, Volume 31, 3/4 [December 2006]. See www.worldreports.org for subscription information.
• Recall that the CIA promulgated the lie that Ambassador Wanta was DEAD. When he ‘ceased’ to be dead in July 2005, the liars were caught in their own web of deceit.
• Uninformed commentators are continuing to speculate wildly and inaccurately about the facts of the Wanta case. These are available IN BLACK, WHITE AND RED in the 480-page issue of International Currency Review cited here. World Reports Limited is a private UK commercial organisation with no subsidies or financial assistance whatsoever, so we cannot possibly distribute this hugely expensive-to-produce document without payment.
However to those who indulge in ill-informed speculation without the facts, we suggest that you should take special care now, because the detailed information which answers almost all outstanding 'Wanta questions' has been 'out there' since early December. If you haven't seen and absorbed International Currency Review Volume 31, Numbers 3 and 4 (and preferably also ICR Volume 30, Numbers 2 and 3, February 2005, which reproduced the Federal Reserve print-outs concerning the original $27.5 trillion of funds entrusted to Leo Wanta's care), you are NOT INFORMED and all speculation and waffle without such basic data is, by definition, not credible. So, if you need to ask questions, make sure that you have read, absorbed and properly understood this openly published intelligence information FIRST. Otherwise you are wasting your own and everyone else's time.
•Note: Should some people wonder why the Ambassador has CIA-linked lawyers, the position in the United States is that people in this position have lawyers ‘imposed upon them’. It’s just one of the quirks and stupidities of the collapsing ‘system’.
• THIS POSTING IS SUBJECT TO UPDATING AS MORE INTELLIGENCE BECOMES AVAILABLE.
Ambassador Leo Emil Wanta: Diplomatic Passport Numbers 04362 & 12535 a.k.a. Frank B. Ingram [FBI] (Sector V) SA32NV; and a.k.a. Rick Reynolds, SA233MS. AmeriTrust Groupe, Inc: Federal EIN Number 20-3866855; Virginia State Corporation Identification Number: 0617454-4; Virginia State Department of Taxation Identification Number: 30203866855F001.
http://www.worldreports.org/news/38_paulson_and_cheney_s
How the crooks in hedge funds operate:
http://publish.vx.roo.com/thestreet/portal/?clipId=1373_10329438&channel=Cramer+On+Demand&pu....
Bayou Co-Founder Marquez Pleads Guilty, U.S. Says (Update4)
By David Glovin and Jenny Strasburg
Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- James Marquez, co-founder of Bayou Group, a U.S. hedge fund, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud investors of more than $10 million, prosecutors said.
Marquez admitted conspiring with Bayou's former chief executive officer, Samuel Israel, and its former chief financial officer, Daniel Marino, both of whom previously pleaded guilty, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement.
Marquez, Israel and Marino persuaded investors to contribute more than $10 million to Bayou funds ``by misleading them into thinking the funds were highly profitable, when in fact they were losing money,'' Garcia said.
In 2005, when Israel and Marino pleaded guilty, the Bayou case prompted state and federal regulators to call for stricter oversight of the hedge fund industry, whose assets had doubled over five years. Bayou is among the biggest hedge funds to come under scrutiny for missing money since 2000, when Michael Berger was accused of hiding $400 million of losses at his Manhattan Investment Fund.
The private pools of capital, largely unregistered, cater to wealthy individuals and institutions and allow managers to participate substantially in profits from investments.
Hedge funds control about $1.3 trillion in assets, more than double the amount they managed five years ago, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc.
Phony Statements
Marquez, facing as much as five years in prison, admitted that he helped formulate trading strategy and conspired with Israel and Marino to create phony financial statements from 1996 to 2001, Garcia said.
The guilty plea was entered in federal court in White Plains, New York. Marquez's lawyer, Stanley Twardy, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
In May, Bayou Group sought bankruptcy court protection to aid efforts to recover $250 million for investors. Lawyers overseeing the dissolution of the Connecticut-based Bayou funds listed more than $100 million each in assets and debts in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition.
Before Bayou, Marquez ran a hedge fund firm called JGM Management Co. in New York. Israel and Marino worked with Marquez at JGM, which closed in 1995 after losses mounted for several years.
Israel opened his own hedge fund in March 1996, in Stamford, Connecticut. He called it Bayou in reference to his New Orleans roots and recruited Marquez and Marino to join him.
Losses, Then Fraud
Prosecutors said the three hatched the scheme after the Bayou funds sustained their second year of losses. They agreed that Marino, a certified public accountant, would form a sham CPA firm named Richmond-Fairfield Associates to sign off on fake financial documents sent to clients, prosecutors said.
A second group of Bayou funds collapsed in August 2005, after Israel and Marino tried to recoup mounting losses, the government said.
Marino wrote a six-page suicide note before he was sentenced, giving details of his activities. It was recovered by the police at Bayou's office in Stamford, authorities said. Marquez helped plan the scheme to defraud investors at Bayou, Marino wrote in the note.
Israel and Marino pleaded guilty to fraud in September 2005. Israel faces as long as 30 years in prison and Marino 50 years when they are sentenced early next year, prosecutors said at the time of their guilty pleas. Marino didn't try to follow through with his suicide threat.
The case is U.S. v. Marquez, Southern District of New York (White Plains.)
Siemens fraud probe widens: WSJ
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A criminal probe into alleged fraud at Siemens AG is widening, according to a media report Wednesday.
German prosecutors said they had uncovered €200 million ($257 million) in suspicious transactions, 10 times the amount they said they had uncovered last week, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).
German authorities also said they jailed two more employees of Siemens's telecommunications unit, bringing to six the number of people under arrest, according to The Journal, and said, a "band" of individuals had engaged in repeated fraud through secret bank accounts set up in other countries.
German prosecutors said last week that they were focusing on 12 suspects, 10 of whom were current or former Siemens employees, The Journal said. The prosecutors said the alleged fraud dated to 2002 and had continued until recently, according to the report.
More than 200 police in Germany raided about 30 offices and residences of employees on Nov. 15 as part of an international investigation into alleged embezzlement and possible bribery at Siemens, Europe's largest engineering company by sales, The Journal said. At the time, they said they had uncovered about €20 million in questionable transactions, according to the report.
Authorities are trying to determine where the money went, according to Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, head of the prosecutors' office in the southern German city of Munich, The Journal reported.
Police have completed their search of Siemens's offices after seizing 36,000 documents, and a team of detectives is in the early stages of reviewing the evidence, The Journal reported Schmidt-Sommerfeld said in a telephone interview.
German authorities are working in conjunction with investigators in Italy and Switzerland, and trying to determine how far up the corporate ladder the alleged fraud traveled, The Journal said.
German prosecutors said last week that they suspected the funds in question were used to pay bribes to secure business contracts, according to the report.
A spokesman for Munich-based Siemens reiterated Wednesday that the company is cooperating with German authorities and is eager to get to the bottom of the matter, The Journal said, adding that Siemens has attributed the alleged fraud to "individual acts" in its fixed-line telecommunications business.
German authorities searched the offices of Klaus Kleinfeld, the chief executive, and other members of Siemens's management board last week as part of the probe, The Journal reported, adding that Kleinfeld is being treated as a witness, not a suspect.
German and Italian prosecutors also have confirmed that Michael Kutschenreuter, the head of Siemens's real-estate division and former chief financial officer of the telecommunications unit, was arrested last week, The Journal said.
In a parallel investigation in Switzerland, a federal prosecutor there said three suspects are under investigation, but none has been arrested, The Journal said.
The Swiss investigation began in mid-2005 after a local bank reported suspicious transactions to Switzerland's money-laundering agency. Prosecutors say they have frozen more than €10 million in connection with the case, The Journal reported.
Italian prosecutors told The Journal this week that they suspect fraud dates back further and wasn't confined to the telecommunications division, according to the report.
They are focusing on Austrian bank accounts controlled by a Siemens official, Karl von Jagemann, whom they suspect directed bribery-funding activities from the mid-1990s until earlier this month, The Journal said.
Mr. Von Jagemann was arrested last week and is suspected of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering, The Journal said, citing Cuno Tarfusser, senior prosecutor in the northern Italian town of Bolzano. Italian investigators say their inquiry dates to 2004, and they are focusing on bank records involving the equivalent of more than €60 million, The Journal said.
Tarfusser said Siemens officials have repeatedly attempted to block his bribery investigation by filing court motions in Austria to stop investigators from accessing data from bank accounts in Innsbruck, The Journal said. A Siemens spokesman said Wednesday he had no knowledge of such attempts, according to the report.
Italian investigators say some of the transactions they are investigating follow a pattern, according to The Journal.
Consulting contracts were signed by senior Siemens officials for work that was never done, The Journal said it was told by investigators, and payments were then transferred through shell companies registered in offshore locations such as the Channel Islands and Puerto Rico.
In a separate case, prosecutors charged two former employees of Siemens's power-generation unit in March with offering €6 million in bribes between 1999 and 2002 to secure contracts from Italian gas companies, The Journal said, adding that case is pending in a German court.
NEW YORK: Morgan Stanley Inc. was fined $500,000 (€391,359) by the New York Stock Exchange for failure to file accurate short-interest sales reports to several U.S. stock exchanges.
The Big Board said Wednesday the brokerage failed to "establish and maintain appropriate procedures" to disclose its short selling. The inaccurate reports were filed during an "unknown but significant" number of years, according to the NYSE.
The fine will be split between the NYSE, National Association of Securities Dealers, and the American Stock Exchange. The NASD is the regulatory body responsible for the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Morgan Stanley agreed to the fine, and neither admitted or denied wrongdoing. The fine was given to the New York-based financial company through NYSE Regulation Inc.
Short-interest transactions involves the sale of a security at the current price, which is then settled with shares lent to the seller by a third party. The seller hopes to make money off the trade by betting the price of the security will go down.
Brokerages are required to report their short positions on a monthly basis.
Morgan Stanley fell 36 cents to $75.54.
Ex-Homestore CEO Gets 15-Year Sentence
Thursday October 12, 11:38 pm ET
By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer
Former CEO of Homestore Sentenced to 15-Year Prison Term for Scheme to Defraud Investors
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The founder and former chief executive of online real estate listings company Homestore Inc. was sentenced Thursday to a 15-year prison term and ordered to pay a $5 million fine for his part in a scheme to defraud investors.
Stuart Wolff, 43, was convicted in June on charges of insider trading, lying to company accountants and federal regulators, and conspiracy in a scheme to inflate online ad revenues at the Westlake Village-based company.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson scheduled a hearing for Nov. 13 to determine whether Wolff will have to pay restitution and if he will be able to remain free on bond pending an expected appeal.
Homestore shareholders lost more than $100 million when the company's stock price fell in 2001 on news of the federal investigation into the company's irregular accounting practices.
Wolff is the 11th former Homestore employee convicted on federal charges stemming from the scheme.
"The lengthy sentence handed out to Mr. Wolff should serve as a warning to other business leaders who may be tempted to cook their books in order to please market analysts," U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang said in a statement.
Wolff headed Homestore from 1997 until he resigned in January 2002. The company, which provides real estate listings and related services on the Internet, has since changed its name to Move Inc.
During the trial, prosecutors said the scheme involved Homestore paying some vendors extra for their products or services and the vendors would then use the money to buy advertising from two media companies.
The media companies, in turn, would buy advertising from Homestore, whose officials would improperly list the revenue on the company's financial statements in order to exceed Wall Street analysts' expectations.
Prosecutors argued that Wolff must have known about the $86 million in deals that other executives have acknowledged were fraudulent.
Wolff's lawyers blamed other employees, including many of the executives who have already pleaded guilty in the case, for the scheme and questioned whether Wolff knew of the dealings.
SEC Charges 33 Companies, Individuals W/ Fraud for Manipulating Microcap Stocks
Fourth Internet Sweep Brings Total Number of Internet Cases Filed in SEC's Nationwide Internet Fraud Crackdown to More Than 180
Washington, D.C., September 6, 2000 – In its fourth nationwide Internet fraud sweep, the Securities and Exchange Commission today announced 15 enforcement actions against 33 companies and individuals who used the Internet to defraud investors by engaging in pump-and-dump stock manipulations. The perpetrators of these market manipulations "pumped" up the total market capitalization of those stocks involved by more than $1.7 billion. The actions involve the stocks of more than 70 microcap companies and illegal profits of more than $10 million. The cases include 11 civil actions filed in U.S. District Courts throughout the country and four related administrative proceedings.
SEC Director of Enforcement Richard H. Walker said, "What used to require a network of professional promoters and brokers, banks of telephones and months to accomplish can now be done in minutes by a single person using the Internet and a home computer. Thinly traded microcap stocks are particularly susceptible to online manipulations. That's why we have made this area one of our highest enforcement priorities. Ultimately, however, the best way for investors to protect themselves against all forms of Internet fraud, including pump-and-dump schemes, is to do their homework and to be highly skeptical of information they receive from strangers on Internet websites, message boards and chat rooms."
Today the SEC also released an online brochure to warn investors about stock market fraud on the web. "Pump&Dump.con: Tips for Avoiding Stock Scams on the Internet" advises investors to be skeptical, consider the source, and independently verify web-based claims about stocks. The brochure is available at www.sec.gov/investor/online/pump.htm.
The cases brought today involve individuals and small entities that spread false information through electronic newsletters, websites, email messages, and through posts on Internet message boards. Some of the respondents have no securities industry experience; one of them is a bus mechanic, another a college student who is also a driver for a car service. Several of today's actions involve foreign entities and individuals who used the Internet to reach U.S. investors. The sweep also includes a complaint the Commission filed in mid-August alleging a pump-and-dump scheme primarily orchestrated by two recidivists. SEC v. Broadband Wireless International Corp. et al., Civil Action No. 00-1375-R (USDC/W.D. Okl). This case required an emergency action filed by the SEC and state regulators to halt the scheme and freeze the assets of the defendants.
Today's actions are part of the fourth nationwide Internet fraud sweep conducted by the SEC. Previous sweeps filed in October 1998 and February 1999 dealt with the unlawful touting of publicly-traded companies via the Internet, while a sweep in May 1999 targeted the sale of bogus securities over the Internet. The SEC has now brought more than 180 Internet-related enforcement actions. More than one-third of these have been brought in the last year.
For more information about Internet fraud, visit www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/cyberfraud.htm. For more advice on saving, investing, and avoiding fraud online, visit www.sec.gov/investor/online.shtml. To report suspicious activity involving possible Internet fraud, visit the SEC's Enforcement Complaint Center at www.sec.gov/complaint.shtml.
Case Summaries & SEC Contact List
SEC v. Thor Equity Group, LLC and George E. Mahfouz, Jr.
(U.S. District Court, District of Arizona)
In the Matter of CancerOption.com, Inc. and Arnold C. Takemoto
(SEC Contact: Donald Hoerl, 303-844-1060)
The SEC alleges that George E. Mahfouz, Jr. and his investor relations firm, Thor Equity Group, touted securities of CancerOption.com, Inc. based on false financial and stock price projections and then sold large amounts of the stock at inflated prices for illicit profits of more than $180,000. CancerOption and Mahfouz provided analysts with false information used in reports recommending CancerOption stock to investors. Mahfouz and Thor Equity then posted the reports on CancerOption's website, and hired touters to spread false information over the Internet. The SEC also alleges that Arnold C. Takemoto, then chief executive of CancerOption, reviewed these reports, knew them to be false, but took no steps to remove them from the company's website. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Mahfouz and Thor Equity consented to the entry of a permanent injunction and Mahfouz consented to the entry of an order requiring him to pay a civil penalty of $50,000 and to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest of over $180,000. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, CancerOption and Takemoto consented to the entry of an order which requires them to cease and desist from committing or causing any violation or any future violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act
SEC v. Lee E. Gahr and Chill Tech Industries, Inc.
(U.S. District Court, District of Nevada)
(SEC Contact: Donald Hoerl, 303-844-1060)
The SEC alleges that Chill Tech Industries, Inc., through its chief operating officer Lee E. Gahr (a resident of Vancouver, Canada), made numerous false and misleading statements and failed to disclose material facts through an Internet website, various press releases, phony unsolicited faxes, and a magazine article. These statements concerned, among other things, the "environmentally friendly" nature of Chill Tech's "Arctic Can," allegedly a self-cooling beverage can. The Arctic Can actually used Freon, a banned substance. The SEC alleges that all the fraudulent statements were drafted or reviewed by Gahr, who ran the company pursuant to a management agreement. Certain of these statements caused the price and volume of Chill Tech stock to increase between 15 percent and 94 percent in the short term. While Gahr was disseminating the false press releases, he personally sold 1,056,500 restricted shares of Chill Tech common stock for a profit of $277,136. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions against Gahr and Chill Tech as well as disgorgement and prejudgment interest, and a civil monetary penalty against Gahr.
SEC v. Christopher P. Hastings d/b/a/ Stockpicks1
(U.S. District Court, District of Kansas)
(SEC Contact: Donald Hoerl, 303-844-1060)
The SEC alleges that Christopher Hastings, using the screen name "Stockpicks1," touted the stock of ten issuers through a free email newsletter (with up to 400 subscribers), on an Internet website he maintained, and in messages he posted on various Internet message boards. Hastings included false and misleading data on his website concerning the track record for his stock picks, which he claimed averaged a 410 percent increase after his touts. Further, Hastings also misrepresented his trading intentions in Internet message board postings and email messages. In two instances, Hastings sold his personal holdings of the touted stocks into the resulting inflated market for total profits of approximately $70,309. Hastings also coordinated his touting with other touters against whom the SEC obtained a preliminary injunction in April 2000. Hastings has no experience in the securities industry; he is currently employed as a school bus mechanic. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Hastings has consented to the entry of an order that enjoins him from future violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The order also requires him to disgorge $70,309 plus prejudgment interest, but waives payment of disgorgement of all but $22,312 and does not impose a civil penalty based on his demonstrated inability to pay.
SEC v. Rajiv Vohra, Sean T. Healey, Lantern Investments, Ltd., Lipton Holdings, Ltd. and Beaufort Holdings, Ltd.
(U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida)
In the Matter of Scott Eskew
In the Matter of Platinum Equities, Inc., Blackhealth & Kent Holdings, Inc., John Kenny and Pasquale Forti
(SEC Contact: Richard P. Murphy, 404-842-7665)
The SEC alleges two schemes to defraud investors in connection with the sale of stock in New Directions Manufacturing, Inc., a small furniture manufacturing company. Two groups that acted both independently and, at times, together, perpetrated the schemes. The first scheme involved Rajiv Vohra and Sean Healey who acquired blocks of free-trading shares of New Directions and then used "wash sales" (they bought and sold shares of New Directions between accounts they controlled) to create the appearance of active trading in the stock. They then published false and misleading information on the Internet to promote the stock while they were selling their shares at a profit of more than $500,000. Vohra and Healey attempted to conceal their scheme by conducting much of their activity through Canadian brokerage accounts held in the name of three Bahamian companies they controlled. Scott Eskew permitted Vohra and Healey to use his name and falsely characterize him as an independent analyst who recommended the stock in a research report published over the Internet. Vohra and Healey paid Eskew $1,500 for his cooperation. The SEC has accepted Eskew's offer of settlement to consent, without admitting or denying the charges, to a cease-and-desist order.
The second scheme involved Platinum Equities, Inc., a registered broker-dealer in New York City, its two principals, John Kenny and Pasquale Forti, and its parent company, Blackheath & Kent Holdings, Inc., who all acquired a large quantity of New Directions shares. Kenny and Forti opened an account at another brokerage firm, in the name of Blackheath & Kent, to park the stock until they could resell it to their customers. When soliciting investments in New Directions stock from customers at Platinum Equities, Kenny and Forti concealed their ownership of the stock. Platinum Equities' customers paid over $1,000,000 for the stock they purchased from Kenny and Forti.
The SEC seeks a permanent injunction against Vohra, Healey, and the Bahamian companies under their control, restraining them from further violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, an accounting, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest and civil monetary penalties. The SEC also has instituted cease-and-desist and administrative proceedings against Platinum Equities, Blackheath & Kent, Kenny and Forti to determine what remedial action should be taken against them, whether an accounting and disgorgement plus reasonable interest should be ordered, whether civil monetary penalties should be imposed against them, whether cease-and-desist orders should be issued, and whether Kenny and Forti should be suspended or barred from participating in an offering of penny stock.
SEC v. Heartsoft, Inc., Benjamin Shell and Jimmy Butler
(U.S. District Court, Northern District of Oklahoma)
(SEC Contact: Spencer Barasch, 817-978-6425)
The SEC alleges that, Benjamin P. Shell and Jimmy Butler, the principals of Heartsoft, Inc. (a developer and marketer of educational software) issued a series of fraudulent press releases that were simultaneously posted on Heartsoft's website. These releases included a myriad of false and misleading statements. During the relevant period, Heartsoft's stock price increased more than 1500 percent from $.21 to nearly $6.00 per share as a result of the false and misleading press releases. The SEC alleges that these releases were, in fact, the only public information available to investors, because the company had not filed any of its required quarterly or annual reports with the SEC from May 1, 1997 until November 1999. Further, Shell and Butler profited from their fraudulent conduct by dumping substantial amounts of their Heartsoft stock, from which they made more than $160,000 in illicit profits. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Heartsoft, Shell and Butler have consented to the entry of a permanent injunction against future violations of the antifraud and reporting provisions of the federal securities laws, and Shell and Butler have agreed to disgorge all of their trading profits, pay prejudgment interest, and pay civil monetary penalties of $50,000 each. In addition, Heartsoft has agreed to provide all public disclosures to outside counsel for review prior to release for a period of four years.
SEC v. Gursel Mandaci
(U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York)
(SEC Contact: Robert Blackburn, 212-748-8185)
The SEC alleges that from February to April 2000, Gursel Mandaci, a college student and driver for a car service, used the Internet to inflate the price of securities that he had purchased in order to create short-term trading profits. Mandaci's strategy was to purchase penny stocks using a margin account he holds at an online broker, and then make large numbers of Internet postings that touted the issuers. These postings included false information about the issuers and baseless price predictions. Mandaci made more than $23,000 in six stocks he manipulated, including one stock that increased in price from $0.01 to $0.38. The SEC has filed a civil injunctive action against Mandaci alleging violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The SEC seeks an order requiring Mandaci to pay disgorgement of $23,073 plus prejudgment interest, and pay a civil monetary penalty.
SEC v. Donald Rutledge and Gregory Skufca
(U.S. District Court, District of Colorado)
In the Matter of John Black
(SEC Contact: Wayne Carlin, 212-748-8178)
The SEC alleges that Donald Rutledge, a Canadian promoter, and Gregory Skufca, an American shell company broker, embarked on a scheme to take public a development-stage company, Plus Solutions, Inc., at $5.00 per share without registering a public offering. Their plan was to increase Snelling Travel's float through a 29-for-1 stock split, and then merge Plus Solutions into Snelling Travel, an over-the-counter issuer. Rutledge and Skufca intended to create the appearance of demand for the merged company's stock at prices of $5 or more per share, and then sell large quantities of the stock to the public. The SEC alleges that Rutledge and Skufca began to carry out the scheme, and engaged in some manipulative trading in the latter half of December 1999, which caused the stock to trade at more than $5 per share, and John Black, an employee of Rutledge, commenced a message "thread" (an area to post messages on a specific topic on an Internet bulletin board) about Snelling and posted two misleading messages on it. The scheme was derailed, however, because Snelling failed to comply with the NASD's notice requirements regarding stock splits. As a consequence of the resulting confusion over the effective date of the split, the proposed merger fell apart, and Snelling's stock price plummeted to pennies per share. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions against Rutledge and Skufca prohibiting violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The SEC also seeks disgorgement, plus prejudgment interest, against Skufca, and civil monetary penalties against Rutledge and Skufca. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Black has consented to the entry of an order requiring Black to cease and desist from committing or causing any violation and any future violation of Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933.
SEC v. Torsten Prochnow d/b/a/ Stockreporter.de, Dennis C. Hass and World of Internet.com AG
(U.S. District Court, Northern District of California)
(SEC Contact: Donald Hoerl, 303-844-1060)
The SEC alleges that Torsten Prochnow and Dennis C. Hass, residents of Germany, touted the stocks of approximately 64 U.S. public companies under the name Stockreporter.de. The touts have been disseminated through postings on Stockreporter.de's Internet website and numerous press releases. As set forth in the complaint, Prochnow, Hass and WorldofInternet.com AG (a German corporation owned by Prochnow and Hass) targeted U.S. investors and these investors purchased the touted stocks based on the Stockreporter.de recommendations. The Stockreporter.de website contained false statements concerning the purportedly "long-term" trading intentions of Stockreporter.de's principals. The website also contained baseless financial and/or stock price projections concerning one of the touted issuers. The website also falsely stated that Stockreporter.de's principals were not compensated for their touting, and both the website and press releases failed to disclose both the nature and source of the compensation. The touts caused the price and trading volume of the stock of certain issuers to increase significantly in the short term. Baseless recommendations resulted in price and volume for 28 stocks increasing an average of between 28 percent and 390 percent. On at least 15 occasions, the SEC alleges that Prochnow and Hass sold their holdings of the touted stocks into the resulting inflated market, realizing profits of $111,530. Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Prochnow and Hass have agreed to the entry of an order that enjoins them from future violations of Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The order also requires them, jointly and severally, to disgorge $111,520 plus prejudgment interest, and for each to pay a civil penalty of $50,000.
SEC v. Thomas Carter
(U.S. District Court, Central District of California)
(SEC Contact: Lisa Gok, 323-965-3835)
The SEC alleges that Thomas Carter manipulated the prices of four securities that he owned by disseminating false material information about the companies. On each occasion, Carter disseminated a mass email purporting to be from a "momentum trading service" called the "Unity List." Carter's Unity List emails recited purported rumors about the touted companies and urged the email recipients to purchase the stocks at specified times. The emails also stated that the author planned to purchase large quantities of the stocks at the same times, implying that the author did not yet have a position in the securities. Contrary to the implications in his emails, Carter actually had purchased substantial positions in the stocks of the companies he touted prior to the times that he instructed his email recipients to purchase the stocks. After acquiring his stock, Carter sent out the emails to thousands of recipients. Many of the recipients acted upon the emails and purchased the profiled stocks and the stock price and trading volume rose dramatically. The SEC alleges that on each of the four occasions that he attempted to manipulate the price of a stock through this scheme, Carter sold his shares in the rising market for illicit profits of more than $12,000. The four stocks manipulated experienced the following price increases: one touted stock increased from $0.06 to $0.14 after dissemination of false report; another touted stock increased from $0.048 to $0.15; another from $0.04 to $0.13; and another from $0.075 to $0.10. The SEC seeks a permanent injunction against Carter for violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The SEC also seeks disgorgement, plus prejudgment interest, and a civil monetary penalty.
SEC v. Michael A. Furr
(U.S. District Court, Central District of California)
(SEC Contact: Donald Hoerl, 303-844-1060)
The SEC alleges that Michael A. Furr, a paid promoter of penny stocks, orchestrated a manipulation scheme in which he touted at least 26 issuers on his free website, in printed research reports, through emails, and on a national radio show. For at least four of the issuers, Furr included false financial projections and made misrepresentations about an issuer's business ventures and assets. Furr also engaged in a fraudulent pattern of trading in the stock of at least 23 of the issuers, realizing proceeds of more than $3.4 million. The same day as, or within a few days of, issuing reports and emails with buy recommendations, Furr sold his stock in the recommended securities in a total of at least 751 trades without adequately disclosing his intention to sell. In addition, Furr either failed to disclose or misrepresented the compensation he received for touting the securities he recommended. Several of the stocks Furr touted experienced dramatic price increases: one touted stock increased from $0.13 to $3.38 after dissemination of the report; another increased from $0.18 to $1.26; another increased from $0.31 to $1.00; and another increased from $2.37 to $9.13. The SEC seeks a permanent injunction against Furr for violations of Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 under the Exchange Act. The SEC also seeks disgorgement, plus prejudgment interest, and a civil monetary penalty.
SEC v. Broadband Wireless International Corporation, BroadCom Wireless Communications Corporation, Ivan W. Webb and Donald L. Knight
(U.S. District Court, Western District of Oklahoma; Civil Action No. 00-1375-R)
(SEC Contact: Spencer Barasch, 817-978-6425)
On August 11, 2000, the SEC filed an emergency enforcement action against Ivan Webb and Donald L. Knight, two recidivist securities laws violators engaged in an ongoing manipulation scheme involving the stock of Broadband Wireless International Corp, traded in the over-the-counter market under the symbol "BBAN." During the fall of 1999, Knight and Webb caused BBAN to issue several press releases and file reports with the SEC that fraudulently touted the company's purported acquisition of several private telecommunications companies, none of which ever came to fruition. Knight and Webb further hyped the company's stock on the company's website and on an Internet bulletin board. The promotional or "pumping" efforts resulted in a dramatic increase in the company's stock. Between late 1999 and February 2000, the stock price increased 10,000%, from 12 cents per share to over $12 per share. Concurrently, Knight, who is on criminal probation for a prior securities fraud scheme, sold or "dumped" millions of shares of restricted BBAN stock, reaping at least $5 million in illicit profits. Later in the scheme, Knight, in an effort to regain control over BBAN from Webb, conducted a fraudulent Internet proxy solicitation through BroadCom Wireless Communications Corp. (a company he controlled). On the same day the suit was filed, a federal court entered orders freezing the assets of all defendants and appointed a receiver to take control of BBAN and BroadCom. An Oklahoma U.S. Attorney simultaneously filed a petition to revoke Knight's criminal probation. The Commission also seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement and civil penalties against Knight, BroadCom, Webb and BBAN.
Additional Materials Available on This Topic
Press Version of the "Pump&Dump.con" brochure (Tips for Avoiding Stock Scams on the Internet)
http://www.sec.gov/news/headlines/intmm.htm
From Clark Howard.com:
Ameriprise and Prudential under the scope
Clark gets very upset when innocent, hard-working people save money for their futures, only to see it sifted off by huge financial companies. Back-to-back stories were published today regarding this kind of thing happening at Prudential and at a former division of American Express, known as Ameriprise. In the case of Prudential, the company has pled guilty to criminal charges for helping key insiders do what’s called “after-market trading” in their mutual funds. Basically, it allowed preferred customers to scarf up all the profits while money was taken away from regular customers. The company is now paying $600 million to avoid criminal prosecution. With Ameriprise, the former financial advisor for American Express, one of the top brokers wiped out tons of bank accounts by putting people in bad accounts. The broker focused most of his energy on retirees from Exxon, who had large retirement accounts. American Express is trying to distance itself from the news and will not be penalized. But it is clear the two were affiliated. Granted, many commissioned financial salespeople are above board. But if you trust a commissioned salesperson with your money and something goes wrong, you are out of luck. Low or no-commission accounts are the smartest way to save. Get more info with Clark’s Investment Guide.
A state regulator gets it right and nails Geoff Eiten:
...since 2001 Goeffrey Eiten, acting individually and through various companies including National Financial Communications Corp and OTC Research Corp (such entities shall be referred to herin as the "Eiten Entities"), fraudulently and illegally acted as a "finder" brokering sales of securities to investors without being registered as a broker-dealer or a broker-dealer agent and provided investment advice in Massachusetts without being registered as an investment adviser under the Act. In addition, Eiten, through an intricate network of entities and straw accounts created to obscure the true nature of his activities, engaged in widespread "pump and dump" transactions by publicly promoting certain stocks at the same time he was selling them. The Enforcement Section also alleges that Eiten and his entities broadly disseminated false and misleading information and omitted material facts in their illegal efforts to provide investment advice...
Eiten, individually and through the companies he has set up, engages in a far-reaching, systematic and recurring practice of providing biased, conflict-of-interest-laden information to investors under the guise of providing independent and unbiased newsletters and financial advice. Deception is at the core of his business model.
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/sct/sctnat/eiten_complaint.pdf
Good post on how the game is rigged:
Posted by: XXXX
In reply to: XXXX, who wrote msg# 57267
Date:8/27/2006 5:36:37 PM
Post #of 57285
Diluting is one way. What needs to be understood is, the real players do not just make money in one way - they make money EVERY way.
1. They convert cheap and dump into the pump
2. At the top of the chart, they turn around and short it from offshore
3. They get cover from the "acquisitions" - which are usually bogus. The shares issued by the companies to pay for these "acquisitions" are dumped into the market, which profits the company. Further, it destroys the share price, allowing a cheap cover for the short positions. Watch out for all of these "acquisitions" and "spinoffs" - remember how Rufus said some would fail? There you have it.
4. They can also play amazing tricks with preferred shares, reg E's and D's - but it's extremely complicated, and I am only beginning to learn that game.
DSCs - Makes you nostalgic for the days of ol' time loan sharks.
It's obvious that in the end, common shares investors are all sheep entitled to
whatever's left after the lions have fed. It's a wonder they make any money at
all.
Just remember, these pinks are a CASINO and not prudent investments. You are
all just taking a spin on the wheel, making money sometimes. You are the card
counters hoping to slant the odds, accepting that there will be losses along
with the gains. The key to the game, as it is with gambling, is cash
management: reducing exposure to losses while raising the stakes when odds favor
you. That's all. These 8-K, 10-Q, SB-4, etc. are dealer "tells", not
representations of revenue flowing to stockholders.
Stay in any game long enough w/o advantage, and the house gets all your chips.
Please excuse me, but I don't see Yahoo or Google in nascent stages here; I see
Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer after they've played out their hit...
If these cats don't see the light, they are going to the free buffet and taking
the bus home empty-handed.
Death Spiral Convertible Just Refuses to Die
Brokerages/Wall Street
Death Spiral Convertible Just Refuses to Die
By Matthew Goldstein
Senior Writer
5/11/2006 7:13 AM EDT
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/brokerages/10284937.html
The "death spiral convertible" might sound like your last car, but it's a bond -- and it's making an unlikely comeback on Wall Street.
These much-maligned securities, whose conversion into common shares can be triggered by precipitous drops in a company's stock, all but disappeared from the market three years ago. The near extinction occurred as investors got wise to the deleterious impact an endless flood of new shares can have on price.
Subsequent allegations of manipulative trading by some of the hedge funds that invested in these deals looked to be the death knell of the death spiral convertible. Those allegations ultimately spawned a regulatory investigation that led to a number of enforcement actions against hedge funds accused of illegally profiting from declines in stock.
Over the past year, however, there's been a surprising revival in the market for death spiral convertibles -- known officially on Wall Street as "floating convertibles.'
In particular, small, cash-strapped companies with market capitalizations often under $100 million are selling these bonds to hedge funds in deals covered by the Wall Street acronym PIPEs, or private investments in public equity. The resurgence in death spiral deals may be an indication that tiny, cash-strapped companies are finding fewer options for raising money.
This year, 10% of the 478 completed PIPE deals brought to market have been death spiral transactions. By comparison, just 1.9% of all PIPE deals in 2003 were categorized as death spirals, according to research firm PlacementTracker. (PlacementTracker officially calls them floating convertibles).
Last year, death spirals accounted for 6.4% of the $20 billion-a-year PIPEs market. Death spiral deals peaked in 1999, when they represented 20% of all PIPE transactions.
Some of the companies that have done death spiral PIPE deals with floating conversion prices this past year include Generex (GNBT:Nasdaq) and Vasomedical (VASO:Nasdaq) , according to PlacementTracker.
So far, two hedge funds are leading the way in investing in death spiral deals. Over the past 12 months, Cornell Capital Partners has emerged as the top investor in death spiral transactions, sinking $175 million into 42 deals. In second place is NIR Group, which has invested $77 million in 40 transactions.
No other hedge fund comes close to Cornell Capital or NIR, says Robert Kyle, executive vice president of Sagient Research, the parent company of PlacementTracker.
Mark Angelo, the founder and president of Cornell Capital, a $500 million fund located in Jersey City, N.J., declined to comment. Corey Ribotsky, the manager of Roslyn, N.Y.-based NIR Group, did not return several phone calls. NIR Group has $486 million in assets under management.
PIPE deals, of course, come in all shapes and fashion. But almost every deal involves the sale of discounted shares to a group of hedge funds.
Death spiral PIPEs got their unsavory reputation because, unlike typical convertible bonds, which get converted into shares only when a stock rises to a fixed price, the conversion price for these notes keeps getting adjusted downward whenever the underlying stock falls. The drop in the stock price also means the buyers are entitled to receive more shares when the conversion occurs.
The floating convertible feature is intended to be an embedded hedge to protect investors in the event the stock doesn't rise in price after the deal. But, in the past, some unscrupulous hedge funds that bought the bonds saw the floating conversion feature as an invitation to make money by literally shorting the stocks to death. In many cases, those hedge funds violated contract provisions forbidding any shorting of the company's stock. (Nobody has lodged such allegations about Cornell or NIR.)
A short sale is a market bet that a stock will fall in price.
To some degree, every PIPE deal, not just death spirals, is a bit of a Faustian bargain for a company. In selling discounted stock or a bond that converts into discounted shares, the company hopes all the extra shares coming into the market won't depress the price of its stock.
PlacementTracker reports that six months after a death spiral convertible is placed, the stock of the issuing company is down, on average, 7%. Yet, ironically, death spirals are not the worst-performing PIPE deals.
PlacementTracker says companies that sell bonds with a so-called "convertible reset' conversion provision often see their shares plunge by 26% six months after doing a deal. A convertible reset PIPE is a modified death spiral that doesn't have an endless conversion feature.
Indeed, the NIR Group, which mainly invests in death spiral PIPEs, reports having some stellar annual returns. The NIR Group's AJW Offhore hedge fund is up 6% this year, after rising 17% last year, according to a report sent to the hedge fund's investors.
One hedge fund manager who didn't want to be identified says most investors in death spiral deals want a company's stock to go up. He says the floating convertible is intended to provide protection to investors. He says there's more money to be made from a company's stock rising than falling.
The hedge fund manager says death spirals unfairly got a bad reputation because of abusive short-selling by some rogue hedge funds.
Casper Hallas, a portfolio manager with Denmark's Scandium Asset Management, agrees with that sentiment. He says his fund invested with the NIR Group because he likes PIPE deals with a floating-conversion feature. He says the downward-conversion feature provides added protection for investors.
"If the market goes down, you convert at the lower rate,' says Hallas. "Having a floating rate is a little bit like riding a put.'
--------------------------------------------------------------
As originally published, this story contained an error. Please see Corrections and Clarifications.
CSFB's Toxic Convertibles
http://www.webb-site.com/articles/toxicon.htm
CSFB's Toxic Convertibles
8th June 2005 (updated 14-Jun-05)
Over the last few years, a large and until now fairly well respected investment bank, Credit Suisse First Boston (Hong Kong) Ltd (CSFB) has been peddling a value-destroying financial instrument to small Hong Kong listed companies. In 2004, Merrill Lynch International (Merrill Lynch) also did one of these sordid deals. Like CSFB, they have apparently decided that the huge profit margins from this kind of product are worth the reputational risk it carries. Come back Frank Quattrone and Henry Blodget, all is forgiven.
Webb-site.com has been aware of the toxic convertibles scam for many years and have repeatedly warned the regulators about them in private, urging a regulatory ban. In our view, there can be no logical reason why a listed company would want to cede control to a third party over what amounts to a stream of future equity issues at deep discounts to market. The Listing Rules should be amended to prohibit listed companies from issuing convertible instruments which carry floating conversion prices. We have waited until now to compile this article because we wanted to conduct a comprehensive study of the actual results of these deals, which can each last several years, to prove how damaging they are. Recently, two of the companies we invested in have been ignorant enough to agree to these deals, and so we resolved that it was time to act.
Warning to all listed companies, particularly small, new and ignorant ones
If you run a listed company and get no further than this paragraph, just learn one thing: toxic convertibles with floating conversion prices will seriously damage your wealth. Don't even think about issuing one or your share price will almost certainly fall.
Hopefully after this story is out, CSFB and Merrill Lynch will reassess that reputational risk. if they want to salvage their reputation, they should do the decent thing and cancel the outstanding deals without redemption premiums, and cease and desist from further issues. In the meantime, if you are an institutional investor, you should consider diverting brokerage business to firms which do not promote this kind of instrument, which could damage your portfolio value. Money talks.
What is a convertible bond?
In normal circumstances, a convertible bond represents borrowings by an issuer from an investor, on which the investor receives interest and has a right to convert the bond into shares at a fixed conversion price, normally until the bond matures. The convertible bond represents a combination of a straight loan and an option to subscribe shares, and the value of the option compensates the investor for the lower interest rate than the issuer would normally pay on its borrowings. The conversion price is normally fixed at a premium to the market price at the time the bond is issued. If the shares rise above that price, then the option will be converted and result in a profit for the bondholder, and otherwise, the issuer benefits from lower-cost borrowings until the bond is redeemed. There is nothing wrong in principle with convertible bonds, other than the fact that they can ultimately result in an issue of shares without offering them to existing shareholders, in other words, dilution.
What is a toxic convertible?
CSFB has added a nasty twist to its bonds, namely a floating conversion price. The typical formula is that at any point during the lifetime of the bonds (typically 3 years), the bondholder (CSFB) can look back at the last 30 days (six weeks) of trading, and pick the lowest closing prices within that period, typically over a 4-day or 5-day average. It can then take a portion of the bonds and convert them at a set discount to that low average price, which is typically between 7% and 10%. As a result, CSFB gets a discount on a discount. CSFB can then sell those shares in the market, locking in a profit. The bond allows CSFB to choose either the floating conversion price or the fixed conversion price, whichever is lower. It result in a near-certain profit at the expense of the issuer.
The consequence of a floating conversion price is that there is no certainty over the number of shares that could be issued if the bonds are converted. This creates a massive over-hang on the market, so investors sell the shares, and as the price falls, the floating conversion price falls with it, and the potential dilution gets even worse. This is why they are known as toxic convertibles. In the case of highly geared companies, the effect can be even worse, and the bonds are sometimes known as death spiral convertibles because the price spirals down as the dilution increases. Read what the United States regulator, the SEC, has to say about toxic convertibles.
Theoretically, the lower limit to the conversion price is the par value of the shares, since under the laws of HK, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, where most HK-listed companies are domiciled, it is illegal to issue shares for less than par value. However par value can often be only a small fraction of the current share price, allowing a long fall.
Another limit to dilution (but not conversion price) comes in the 20% general mandate to issue new shares, but the agreement with CSFB often includes an obligation to seek a fresh mandate from shareholders if the current mandate is exhausted, and in any case, these are multi-year deals so the annual general meeting will likely pass a new 20% mandate each year. It is unclear whether the agreements, which are not themselves published, include any obligation on the controlling shareholders to vote in favour of such mandates. In some cases, the issuers have sought and obtained a blanket issue mandate to cover as many shares as they need for conversions during the life of the bond.
Structural details
The CSFB deals typically split the bonds into 2 or more tranches, with the first tranche or Tranche 1 issued immediately. CSFB usually has an option to require the next tranche to be issued on the same terms, called the Additional Tranche 1. That option in itself has value, because if the share price rises after Tranche 1 is issued, then CSFB benefits from the fact that the maximum conversion price has already been fixed. Often a third tranche, which they call Tranche 2, can be issued at the option of the listed company, and this usually involves resetting the fixed conversion price based on a premium to the market price at the time of the new bond issue.
In recent deals, CSFB has included something called the "downside price", at a deep discount (typically 35-40%) to market. If the market price is at or below the downside price when bonds are presented for conversion, then the issuer has the right to redeem them instead, subject to payment of a premium (they always get their pound of flesh). However, if the issuer does not or cannot exercise that right then the conversion will proceed and the price may decline further. Note that the downside price is not actually a limit on the conversion price, because the 30-day look-back period allows CSFB to convert at less than the downside price after the price has risen back above it.
They have also sometimes included a "put price", at an even deeper discount (typically 50-60%). If the market price is below this level, then CSFB cannot convert the bonds but has the right to require redemption. If the market price reaches this level, then you can bet that the upside is limited so long as CSFB has not called for redemption, because as soon as the price begins to recover, the conversion rights become exercisable again.
It is still possible that a share price will move upwards after the bond is issued, for example, if the earnings grow fast enough to offset the dilution of the share base, or if the issue size is relatively small compared with market capitalisation, then the damage may not be as great and the overhang is smaller. Even in these circumstances, the dilution will still be a drag on the performance of the shares.
The CSFB deals usually include an option to subscribe new shares for cash worth about 15-20% of the face value of the bonds, with an exercise price at a premium to the market price at the time the bonds and options are issued. In most cases, however, the share price falls due the the overhang of the bonds, and the options are not exercised. Companies may be thinking that these options provide some kind of incentive for CSFB not to drive the price down with rapid conversions, but history shows that the options are seldom exercised, and it is clear that the bulk of the profit comes from the bond conversions.
An equity tap - outsourcing the general mandate
In several of the cases we have studied, the agreement with CSFB includes an escrow arrangement, so that part or all of the money received for the bond is placed in a trustee bank account and cannot be used by the company until the corresponding amount of the bond (or part of it) is converted. Meanwhile the money earns interest which can be used to pay the interest on the bond. This makes it even more obvious that the convertible is in effect an "equity tap" (or if you are American, a faucet) in which CSFB taps out freshly issued equity into the market whenever they see fit. Rationally they would choose moments when the floating conversion price is at the largest possible discount to the current market price, to earn the maximum profit. Remember, they can look back 30 days to pick a low point.
As readers will know, we have long opposed the general mandate sought by corporate boards from their shareholders to issue new shares for cash without offering them to existing shareholders. But the equity tap takes this a step further by effectively delegating and outsourcing the general mandate, placing it in the hands of an investment bank whose principal financial interest is to lock in the profit from the conversions.
We have no idea why companies would agree to this, particularly those which already have strong balance sheets (sometimes holding substantial net cash), good core businesses, and low P/Es. We suspect the companies are mostly ignorant rather than dishonest, and the involvement of such a prestigious investment bank might seem like a way to draw attention to an overlooked company. Well, for all the little companies who were seeking attention, now you've got ours.
Opacity
One of the many defects of Hong Kong's Listing Rules is that, while companies are required to disclose share buy-backs by the morning after the transaction, they are not required to disclose share issues. So when a placing of new shares gets completed, or when share options get exercised, or when bonds are converted, or when scrip dividends are issued, nobody knows about the new shares except the company and the person receiving them, who may then turn around and sell them. A typical HK-listed company has a daily turnover of just 0.1-0.2% of its issued shares, so even a small issue of shares hitting the market can impact the share price.
Another implication is that shareholders who are seeking to monitor whether their shareholdings have passed through the 5% legal disclosure threshold, or any of the 1% boundaries above it (6%, 7%...) don't know for sure how many shares are in issue. All they can do is check this HKEx web page, which is updated only if a company sends in a monthly return. It is unreasonable to expect investors to check that every day for each of their holdings, just in case there has been an update.
We call again on the Listing Committee to amend the rules to require immediate disclosure of all new share allotments by filing with the Stock Exchange, on the same timetable as the disclosure of share buy-backs. The same disclosure should apply to the grant of share options or the creation of any other rights to subscribe shares.
Recently, the Stock Exchange has shown signs of listening to our pleas, because in a stop-gap half-measure, they have begun requiring issuers, as a condition of listing approval for the shares underlying convertibles, to disclose within 5 trading days of each month-end whether any of the convertibles have been converted, and if so how much, and a further requirement that if, during a month, the number of shares issued since the last disclosure is more than 5% of the company, then that must be disclosed too. However, this does not go far enough. 5% of the issued shares is about 5 to 10 weeks' turnover for an average stock, and it is not much consolation to be told about it a month later.
A study of toxic convertibles in HK
We have conducted an extensive study of 15 current and prior toxic convertible issues for which online records exist - all that we could find, excluding deals with controlling shareholders, although we cover some of those at the end of the article. Of the 15 deals, CSFB has led 13 of them, 1 was by Merrill Lynch, and one by an obscure firm called FB Gemini.
Limitations of the study
As mentioned above, we cannot know exactly which dates all the conversions are made, because there is no disclosure requirement. However, by carefully analysing statements in annual reports, interim reports, shareholder circulars and announcements, we can narrow conversions of blocks of bonds to a range of dates. We can then look at the volume weighted average price (VWAP) during the same period, that is, the average price at which all shares traded in the market during that period, and we can calculate the average discount of the floating conversion price compared with the VWAP. Hence we can estimate the profit that the bondholders made, or the effective discount to market at which the shares were issued during the conversion period.
We emphasise that these are only estimates, and there may be considerable variance between the estimate and the actual profit, depending on exactly when the bonds were converted and the resulting shares sold. However, if you analyse as many cases as we have, then the average of all cases will be a pretty accurate estimate. In some cases, where we do not have access to daily data before 2003, we have measured VWAP to the nearest week. Again, while this makes individual discount calculations less accurate, it will even out on the average and will not affect the validity of the results.
We have adjusted for bonus issues, stock splits, consolidations and rights issues. We use the phrase "scrip-adjusted" to describe this. We ignore the effect of dividends.
Expenses
In the course of our case studies, apart from the damage caused by toxic convertibles, we found that they also seem to involve unusually high issue expenses, averaging around 5% of the bond issue, whereas a typical equity placing would cost 1-2%. We can't help wondering whether someone, either the subscriber or a middle-man, is charging an arrangement fee. Whatever, the cause, it is a further drag on the company.
Summary and findings
Of the 15 toxic convertible issues we studied, involving 13 listed companies, 9 have run their course, 4 still have bonds outstanding, and the latest 2 have not yet had any bond conversions. The average market cap of the companies involved at the time they agree to the deals was US$142m, and the average maximum size of the deals (excluding the 15-20% options) is about US$18m.
· <![endif]>We found that in 13 out of 15 issues, or 87% of the time, the share price at the time of writing (7-Jun-05) was less than when the bond was first announced. The average movement in share price for all 15 cases (including the two that rose) was a 30.0% drop.
· <![endif]>Looking at the average conversion price for each bond issue, in 10 out of 13 cases, it was lower than the market price before the issue was announced, and the average discount of all 13 cases was 29.8%.
· <![endif]>Looking at the average conversion price compared with the VWAP during the conversion periods, we found it was lower in all 13 cases, by a weighted average discount of 23.7%.
· <![endif]>In terms of money raised for the issuer, before expenses, CSFB's gross profit margin is therefore about 31%. It certainly beats doing straight equity placings for a 1% fee.
· <![endif]>Put simply, for every US$1m the company receives from CSFB, CSFB makes a profit of about US$310k.
· <![endif]>Companies also pay issue fees and expenses averaging 5% on money raised.
Here is a summary of the findings, in order of issue date.
The above table excludes the US$1.36m redemption premium paid by Sunway to terminate its deal early, and the US$2.51m settlement paid by EganaGoldpfeil to stop another tranche of bonds. Several of these deals are still in progress, so the total profit shown is less than the final figure.
Now we cover the cases in detail. To navigate among them, use the "companies in this story" links at the top of this page.
EganaGoldpfeil
On 15-Dec-99, EganaGoldpfeil (Holdings) Ltd (EGP, 0048) announced a single-tranche issue of US$15m toxic convertibles to CSFB with a fixed conversion price (scrip-adjusted) of $2.80, compared with a market price of $2.44. EGP had a market value of HK$2,383m (US$305.5m).
In fact, this was not the first toxic convertible by EGP - it announced one back on 21-Apr-97 which was issued on 1-May-97, but we don't have the announcement as it predates the online system, and we don't know who the subscribers were.
Here's the estimated conversion history of the 1999 bond:
The table shows that the average conversion price was $1.726, or a 29.3% discount to the price when the bonds were first announced, and we estimate that CSFB made a profit of $31.8m. At the end of the conversion period, on 30-Nov-02, the shares closed at $1.52, a fall of 37.7% since the bond was announced.
Round 2
Not satisfied, EGP came back for more, and on 27-Feb-03 it announced a new issue of up to US$25m toxic convertibles, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$10m and a fixed conversion price of $1.6184. CSFB also received an option to subscribe up to 9,035,336 shares at the fixed conversion price. The stock closed the previous day at $1.36, valuing EGP at HK$1,539m (US$197.4m). Issue expenses were US$212,500, or 2.125%.
On 6-Jun-03, EGP and CSFB amended the redemption provisions, apparently to deal with the fact that the par value of EGP's shares is HK$1 which sets a floor on the legal price of any shares issued to satisfy a redemption.
On 15-Jan-04, EGP and CSFB amended the agreement again, to reduce the interest rate, reflecting the lower bank deposit rates of the time, and to change the floating conversion price from a 7% discount to a 10% discount to the average of the 5 lowest closing prices in a period of 30 trading days. They then issued US$5m of Additional Tranche 1 bonds. The market price the previous day was $1.85, so the fixed conversion price of $1.6184 was already in the money. CSFB also received options to subscribe 4,517,668 shares at $1.6184 each. At the same time, EGP issued the US$10m Tranche 2, which had a fixed conversion price of $2.0604, and came with options to subscribe 7,066,098 shares at the same price. Issue expenses were US$290k.
On top of all that, on the same day, EGP granted CSFB a further option to require EGP to issue a further US$10m Tranche 3 bonds, exercisable once at any time until 27-Feb-06. The bonds would have a 3-year maturity. On 10-May-05, perhaps finally realising the damage these instruments cause, EGP announced that it had agreed with CSFB to cancel the right to subscribe Tranche 3, as well as the existing share options and the ones which would have come with Tranche 3. The announcement contains numerous errors which have yet to be corrected, and although you won't find it mentioned in the summary, EGP had to pay CSFB US$2.51m (HK$19.6m) to cancel the deal.
The conversion history, as near as we can estimate, is as follows:
As shown, the average conversion price of the bonds was $1.308, and CSFB has made an estimated profit of HK$14.0m so far, plus the $19.6m they were paid to cancel Tranche 3 and the options, plus whatever they will make on the US$15.7m of toxic convertibles outstanding at the latest interim report date of 30-Nov-04.
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China Rare Earth
On 13-Jun-00, less than 8 months after it listed, rare earth and refractory products maker China Rare Earth Holdings Ltd (CRE, 0769) agreed an issue of up to US$10m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$5m and a fixed conversion price of HK$1.34, a 24% premium over the closing price that day of about $1.08, when CRE was valued at HK$648m (US$83.1m). CSFB also received an option to subscribe 4m shares at $1.6035. CRE had an option to issue a Tranche 2 of US$5m within 75 days after Tranche 1 was fully converted, but they let it lapse. At least they got that right.
The estimated conversion history is as follows:
So the average conversion price (including the options) was $1.157, which was a 40.0% discount to the estimated selling price CSFB could have obtained during the conversion period. On 7-Jun-05, the shares closed at $0.95.
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Sunway
On 25-May-00, less than 9 months after it listed, calculator maker Sunway International Holdings Ltd (Sunway, 0058) agreed an issue of up to US$20m toxic convertibles to CSFB and The SCM Growth Fund II L.P. (SCM), with an initial Tranche 1 of US$10m and a fixed conversion price of HK$2.1087, a 20% premium to the closing price that day of about $1.76, which valued Sunway at $1,760m (US$225.6m). The bond subscribers also received options to subscribe 11.5m shares at the fixed conversion price.
Update, 14-Jun-05
In the original version of this article, we incidentally suggested that SCM may have been managed by Strong Capital Management Inc. Sources now indicate that this was not the case, and SCM was more probably managed by a firm called "Strategic Capital Management". We regret any confusion caused.
The estimated conversion history is as follows:
As you can see, only US$1.3m was converted, at an average price of $0.491, or 72.1% below the market price when the bond was first announced. The bonds included an option for Sunway to redeem the bonds if they were presented for conversion while the market price was $1.00 or less, at a redemption price "determined under the Subscription Agreement", the formula for which was not disclosed. The market price did indeed descend well beyond this point, and Sunway ended up paying a total premium of about HK$10.6m to redeem the rest of the bonds, which is more than the $10.1m value converted. Overall then, Sunway issued 20.6m shares for a negative price. What a painful lesson. Since then, they haven't issued any shares. The stock closed at $0.29 on 7-Jun-05.
Incidentally, Sunway is one of only a few companies in HK with 3 generations simultaneously on the board - a Grandfather, his daughter, two granddaughters and their mother (who was married to the late Chairman).
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Asia Aluminium
On 30-Aug-00, Asia Aluminium Holdings Ltd (AA, 0930), which in a tech-bubble moment, renamed itself "Global Applied Technologies Holdings Ltd" before reverting to its old name, agreed an issue of up to US$16m toxic convertibles, including an initial Tranche 1 of US$13m, of which US$8m went to CSFB and US$5m to SCM, and a US$3m Tranche 2 to be issued 3 weeks later to SCM. So overall, the US$16m deal went 50:50 between CSFB and SCM.
Both Tranches had a fixed conversion price of HK$1.375 (scrip-adjusted). The Tranche 1 bond issue was completed on 1-Sep-00, and then next day it was disclosed that AA had also granted options to CSFB and SCM to each subscribe for 12.5m shares at $1.42 (adjusted) per share.
The estimated conversion history is as follows:
On 31-Aug-00, the day before the first bond was issued, the shares closed at $1.2125 (adjusted), valuing AA at about HK$2.51bn (US$322m). As you can see, the average conversion price was $0.517, a 57.4% discount to that price, and an average 25.9% discount to market prices prevailing during the estimated conversion periods over the next 2 years. We estimate that CSFB and SCM made a profit of HK$44m while AA raised $124.8m before expenses. The amount of expenses was not disclosed. None of the share options was exercised.
AA is a company which has spewed out new shares like Vesuvius. The toxic convertible was just a part of this. In the 4 years from Jun-00 to Jun-04, its Earnings Per Share fell 23.8% even though its net profit rose 37.2%. It's hard to grow your EPS when your "S" grows faster than your "E". The shares closed on 7-Jun-05 at $0.90.
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Tidetime Sun
On 28-Feb-01, Tidetime Sun (Group) Ltd (Tidetime, 0307), which has had 3 names in the last year alone, agreed an issue of up to US$16m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$8m and a fixed conversion price of HK$0.2399. The shares closed the previous day at $0.225, valuing Tidetime at HK$1,381m (US$177.1m). CSFB also received options to subscribe up to 70m shares at $0.2369 each. Issue expenses were US$400k (5%). These options were not exercised, and Tidetime did not exercise its option to issue a US$8m Tranche 2.
The estimated conversion history is as follows:
So the conversion price averaged $0.0969, a 56.9% discount to the market price when the bond was announced.
Round 2
Tidetime's then management did not learn much from this experience, because on 6-Jun-02 it announced another toxic convertible, this time up to US$26m with FB Gemini Asset Management Ltd (FB Gemini). The shares closed the previous trading day at $0.136, valuing Tidetime at HK$1,267m (US$162.5m). An initial US$6m Tranche 1 was issued on 9-Jul-02 and US$3.5m was immediately converted at $0.102. FB Gemini also received an Option to subscribe US$150k at the fixed conversion price.
On 27-Aug-02, the agreement was amended and FB Gemini surrendered its right to require Tidetime to issue another US$20m of bonds, and in return, received a "Further Option" to subscribe up to US$4m at any of the actual conversion prices of the Tranche 1 bonds. On 27-Sep-04, the deal was amended again, to change the conversion formula for the remaining US$200k of bonds, to lower the exercise price of the $150k option and to cut the size of the Further Option.
Here's the estimated conversion history so far:
So the average conversion price so far has been a 53.7% discount to the market price before the deal was announced. The deal expires on 9-Jul-05. We should note that Tidetime is one of the most prolific issuers of shares in the market, and has reported a loss for 9 consecutive years under various management. As of 30-Apr-05 it had 23.22 billion shares in issue. The shares have been suspended since 25-Apr-05 at $0.017.
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Far East Pharmaceutical Technology
On 14-Aug-01, just under a year after listing, Far East Pharmaceutical Technology Co Ltd (FEPT, 0399) agreed an issue of up to US$12m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$4m and a fixed conversion price of HK$0.41125 (scrip-adjusted). The stock closed at $0.335 that day, valuing FEPT at HK$461m (US$59.1m). CSFB also received options to subscribe up to 18,966,564 shares (adjusted) at the fixed conversion price. Issue expenses were US$320k, or 8% of Tranche 1.
On 14-Dec-01, CSFB exercised its right to require FEPT to issue US$4m Additional Tranche 1 with the same fixed conversion price as Tranche 1. FEPT also exercised its right to issue US$4m Tranche 2 with an amended fixed conversion price of HK$0.4775 (adjusted). The floating conversion price for Tranche 2 was amended from a 7% discount to a 9% discount to the (lowest) average of any 4 consecutive closing prices in a 30-day look-back period. The stock closed at $0.425 that day. Issue expenses were US$320k, or 4%.
On 7-Jan-02, FETP announced that on 18-Dec-01, CSFB waived the requirement in the agreement for shareholders' approval of the Additional Tranche 1 and Tranche 2 but, with the general mandate almost exhausted, FETP obtained a fresh general mandate to issue shares at an EGM on 29-Apr-02.
The estimated conversion history is as follows:
As you can see, the volatile nature of this stock allowed CSFB to achieve exercise prices which averaged 33.3% less than the volume weighted average price for the periods in which bonds were converted. We estimate that they made a profit of HK$50m, while FETP raised $96.4m net of expenses of $5.0m.
FETP's crash
We divert briefly to tell you what happened to FETP afterwards. Readers may recall that on 17-Jun-04, FETP's share price crashed 92% and swas suspended 4 minutes before the market closed, never to trade since. On 24-Jun-04, brokerage Guotai Junan Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd (GJ), the Co-lead Manager of FETP's IPO, disclosed that on 17-Jun-04, the day of the crash, it had enforced a share pledge on 25.9% of FETP and had sold about 5.53% at an average of $0.069 in the market that day. On 29-Jun-04, Celestial Securities Ltd (Celestial) also disclosed that it had acquired and sold 8.56% at an average of $0.101 on the day of the crash. These two sales added up to 14.09%. At least one other party was involved, because the controlling shareholder reported a reduction of its holding of 15.81%, and recorded sales at a higher maximum price than the brokers.
As brokers, GJ and Celestial were exempt from disclosing their security interest in the shares until it became enforceable, so the public never knew about the pledges, and could not factor this information into their investment decision to hold the shares. This and several other cases pushed the Securities and Futures Commission to review whether the exemption for banks and brokers should be continued, and we have long called for it to be scrapped. Pledges represent the potential for a forced sale, and this is negative to valuation of stocks, particularly when a company's loans include covenants that the controlling shareholder will remain in control, as they did in this case, so a forced sale means that the company's bank loans go into default.
Predictably, banks, brokers and listed companies were opposed to disclosing such negative information, and recently, the SFC decided to do nothing but form a working group to study it further.
It appears that a syndicate of banks led by Raiffeisen Zentralbank Osterreich AG (Singapore branch) and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) were taken for a ride, agreeing a US$80m loan on 10-May-04. On 15-Sep-04, SCB filed a winding-up petition, and on 22-Sep-04 provisional liquidators were appointed. All the directors who were on board at the time of the crash have since quit citing "health reasons" or "personal reasons". Questions remain over why a company which apparently had so much cash was in need of a bank loan, and what happened to all that money. The last annual accounts for 30-Jun-03, audited by CCIF CPA Ltd, showed cash in the balance sheet of HK$644m.
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Global Green Tech
On 13-Dec-01, just under a year after its IPO, skin cream maker Global Green Tech Group Ltd (GGT, 0274) agreed an issue of up to US$12m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$4.08m and a fixed conversion price of $1.8019 (scrip-adjusted). CSFB also received an option to subscribe 3m shares at $2.0791 each. The shares closed that day at $1.267 (adjusted), valuing GGT at HK$467.6m (US$59.94m).
On 9-Apr-02, GGT and CSFB agreed to swap the remaining US$1.78m of the original Tranche 1 with a new batch on identical terms, in order to get around the depleted general mandate. On 30-Apr-02, GGT sent a circular to shareholders and obtained their approval to issue as many shares as necessary to satisfy all future conversions of the bonds.
On 9-Jul-02, GGT exercised its right to require CSFB to subscribe US$3.84m Tranche 2, with a fixed conversion price of $2.2453 (adjusted). On 30-Jan-04, CSFB exercised its right to require GGT to issue the US$4.08m Additional Tranche 1.
The estimated conversion history is shown below.
The table shows that the average conversion price was $0.987, a discount of 22.1% to the price when the bond was first announced. The shares closed on 7-Jun-05 at $0.80.
Options excess
As a side note, we should remark that GGT is one of the worst exploiters of Hong Kong's lax listing rules on share options, dishing them out not just to employees but to consultants, customers and suppliers. We calculate that as of 25-Apr-05, 36.5% of the existing issued share capital had resulted from the exercise of options. Of course, the value of these options has not until now been required to be recorded as an expense in the income statements. New accounting standards should change that.
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Champion Technology
On 22-May-02, Champion Technology Holdings Ltd (Champion, 0092) agreed an issue of up to US$24m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$8m and a fixed conversion price of HK$2.3635. The stock closed at $1.88 the previous day, valuing Champion at HK$1,070m (US$137.2m). CSFB also received options to subscribe 4,949,905 shares at the fixed conversion price. Issue expenses were US$306k.
On 27-Jun-02, Champion announced that it would sent a circular to shareholders seeking authority to issue "the appropriate number of shares" on conversion of the bonds - in other words, opening the door to almost unlimited dilution of the share capital, beyond the 20% general mandate that they already held. The circular failed to spell out the maximum number of shares that could be issued in a worst-case scenario, instead focussing on the fixed conversion price. Approval was obtained.
On 26-Sep-03, US$8m of Tranche 2 bonds were issued, with a fixed conversion price of HK$1.98. The market price that day was $1.68, valuing Champion at HK$1,169m (US$149.8m). CSFB also received an option to subscribe 5,881,515 shares at $1.98 each. Issue expenses were US$262k.
You will notice that we have skipped the Additional Tranche 1, which CSFB had not called to be issued. The 3-year term of the original bonds was set to expire on 22-May-05, but on 28-Apr-05, CSFB and Champion amended the agreement and issued US$8m Additional Tranche 1 bonds, extending the maturity until 22-Nov-05 and amending the put price to $1.00. The shares closed on 28-Apr-05 at $1.18. Issue expenses were another US$273k. As previously agreed, CSFB also received an option to subscribe 4,949,397 shares at the fixed conversion price of $2.3635 each, although that is obviously of little value now.
On 13-May-05, Champion disclosed the formula which would apply if bonds were presented for conversion while the market price was below the downside price of $1.10. Basically Champion would then have the option to redeem by payment of an extra 8% interest. CSFB wins either way.
Obviously this deal is still in progress, but based on the accounts up to 31-Dec-04, here is the estimated conversion history:
As you can see, the average conversion price up to 31-Dec-04 was $1.116, which was a 40.6% discount to the market price when the bonds were first issued. Champion had issued equity for HK$92.8m, paid expenses of US$841k (HK$6.6m), and CSFB has made an estimated profit of HK$27.7m. The stock closed on 7-Jun-05 at $1.21.
Champion is a sorry story in itself - if you adjust for 3 bonus issues, a consolidation and a rights issue, then the IPO price in Aug-92 was $3.673. The company has also pumped out a stream of bonus warrants to its shareholders so that there has been one in issue at almost all times since it was listed. All that a warrant issue does is to reduce the company's ability to optimise the capital structure, since they cannot control when the warrants will be exercised.
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Tack Fat
On 19-Dec-02, less than 8 months after listing, Tack Fat Group International Ltd (Tack Fat, 0928) announced an issue of up to US$12m toxic convertibles to CSFB, with an initial Tranche 1 of US$4m and a fixed conversion price of HK$0.62. The stock closed at $0.55 that day, valuing Tack Fat at HK$730.4m (US$93.6m). CSFB also received options to subscribe US$0.8m for 11.744m shares at $0.531 each.
This was one of the smaller deals, so the overhang was less and the stock price actually rose. On 3-Oct-03, CSFB exercised its option to require Tack Fat to issue US$4m Additional Tranche 1 bonds, together with options to subscribe another 11.744m shares at $0.531 each. That day, the share price was $0.87, so the Additional Tranche 1 with options already had an expected profit of HK$16.56m (US$2.12m).
We estimate the conversion history was as follows:
Overall, the table shows that Tack Fat issued 123.1m shares for HK$71.9m (before expenses of $3.4m) at an average price of $0.584, and CSFB earned an estimated profit of $18.0m, or about 20% of the estimated gross amount raised. At 28-Dec-04 (when the interim report was finalised) they also still had options to subscribe 5.528m shares at $0.531. That day, the shares closed at $0.85, implying an intrinsic value of $1.8m.
So far, Tack Fat has not, as far as we know, exercised its right to require CSFB to subscribe the final Tranche 2 of US$4m. Perhaps they have learnt from their experience. Tack Fat closed on 7-Jun-05 at $0.98.
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Hua-Han Bio-Pharmaceutical
On 22-Jul-03, Hua Han Bio-Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd (HHBP, 0587) announced an issue of up to US$12m toxic convertibles to CSFB. The stock closed at $1.19 before the announcement, valuing HHBP at HK$676m (US$86.7m). The fixed conversion price was $1.4879.
Tranche 1 was US$3.5m (HK$27.3m), less expenses of HK$2.9m. CSFB also received options to subscribe 4,587,078 shares at $1.3094 each. Further details were disclosed in an announcement on 8-Aug-03, and, and an Additional Tranche 1 of US$4.5m (HK$35.1m), less expenses of HK$2.3m was issued on 5-Sep-03, when the shares closed at $1.35.
On 30-Oct-03 the company issued a further clarification and the next day dispatched a circular to obtain shareholders approval for the possible issue (at the option of HHBP) of US$4m Tranche 2 convertible bonds and the issue of "such number of new shares as may be required" upon their conversion. In other words, an unlimited general mandate had bee outsourced to CSFB.
As of 31-Dec-04, a total of US$7.25m had been converted and US$0.75m remained outstanding, so the company had not yet pulled the trigger on the next US$4m tranche. The conversion history, as near as we can estimate, is as follows:
As you can see, up to 31-Dec-04 the average conversion price was $0.964 per share, or 19% less than the market price when the bond was first issued. The company has so far issued equity for $56.5m before expenses of $5.2m. Net of expenses, HHBP has raised only $51.27m, or $0.876 per share.
On 7-Jun-05, HHBP closed at $1.00 per share. The company has also been a heavy issuer of share options to directors, employees and consultants.
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Egana Jewellery & Pearls
Earlier in this chronology we covered the toxic convertibles issued by EganaGoldPfeil. EGP has a listed subsidiary, Egana Jewellery & Pearls Limited (EJP, 0926). On 10-Feb-04, EJP agreed to issue up to US$45m of 5-year toxic convertibles, not to CSFB, but to Merrilll Lynch, who were jumping on the toxic bandwagon for the first time in Hong Kong, at least.
The shares closed the previous day at HK$2.10, valuing EJP at HK$651.4m (US$83.52m) so the maximum bond issue represented a huge portion of the company.
The initial US$10m (HK$78m) Tranche 1 carried a fixed conversion price at the lesser of $2.50 or 122% of the market price the day before closing. When the issue closed on 26-Feb-04, the market price was already $2.475 (a price not seen since then), so the fixed conversion price was set at $2.50, and Merrill Lynch received options to subscribe about 5,548,929 shares at the same price. Issue expenses were HK$3m.
An additional US$5m Tranche 1a was agreed to be issued between 45 and 150 days later. Each side had an option to issue another US$5m Tranche 2a from day 151 to day 250, which EJP could optionally increase with a US$5m Tranche 2b on the same day. The same fixed conversion price of $2.50 applied to all these tranches. Apparently neither Tranche 1a nor Tranche 2 was issued.
Merrill Lynch was also given an option to subscribe US$5m Tranche 3a from day 251 to day 350, and US$5m Tranche 4a from day 351 to day 500. If either of these options was exercised, then EJP had the right to increase the issue size with US$5m Tranche 3b or US$5m Tranche 4b, on the same respective issued dates. As clarified on 26-Feb-04, the fixed conversion prices for Tranche 3 and Tranche 4 would be 122% of the 30-day volume-weighted average price prior to issue.
On 13-Jan-05, Merrill Lynch exercised its right to require US$5m Tranche 3a to be issued, together with options to subscribe 3,518,342 shares at the fixed conversion price of $1.656. EJP chose not to add a Tranche 3b. The shares closed that day at $1.37. On 18-Feb-05, EJP announced that listing approval for the underlying shares had been obtained, but didn't say when. On 7-Mar-05 EJP announced that the approval was in fact obtained on 4-Feb-05, and from then until 28-Feb-05, US$2.5m had been converted. On 17-Mar-05, EJP announced that the rest of Tranche 3a had been converted on 9-Mar-05, which was the same day that they had put out a standard statement saying they had no idea why the volume had increased. Really!
So far, the estimated conversion history is as follows:
As you can see, the average conversion price has been $1.136, a discount of 45.9% to the market price of $2.10 when the toxic convertibles were first announced, and we estimate that Merrill Lynch has made about $31m from the issue so far, plus any profits they may make from the share options if the price recovers. The number of shares in issue has been diluted by 33.2% since the bond was announced, entirely because of conversions. The stock closed on 7-Jun-05 at $1.32.
As far as we know, Merrill Lynch has not yet required EJP to issue Tranche 4a, and they have until the 500th day after the first bond, being 10-Jul-05, to do so.
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Art Textile
On 6-Dec-04, Art Textile Technology International Co Ltd (Art Textile, 0565) agreed an issue of up to US$15m toxic convertibles to CSFB, including an initial US$10m Tranche 1 with a fixed conversion price of $0.8579. Issue expenses were US$563k, or 5.63%. The shares closed the previous day at $0.69, valuing Art Textile at HK$604.8m (US$77.54m). Up to 31-May-05, none of the bonds had been converted, but the overhang has been enough to drive the market price down 24.6% in 5 months, closing at $0.52 on 7-Jun-05. The fall came despite the fact that the company reported interim net profit up 32.3% for the six months to 31-Dec-04.
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Sinotronics
On 27-Apr-05, CSFB found its latest victim, Sinotronics Holdings Ltd (Sinotronics, 1195), which agreed to an issue of up to US$15m toxic convertibles, including an initial Tranche 1 of US$10m with a fixed conversion price of $1.1722. Issue expenses were US$600k, or 6%. The shares closed the previous day at $0.85, valuing Sinotronics at HK$421.3m (US$54.02m).
Up to 31-May-05, no bonds have yet been converted, but since the announcement, the shares have fallen 12.9%, closing on 7-Jun-05 at $0.74.
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Dishonourable Mentions
The toxic convertible has also been used by lesser-known subscribers, and we mention them here as a warning to our readers.
Rexcapital International
On 12-Jun-01, REXCAPITAL International Holdings Ltd (RexInt, 0155) agreed an issue of HK$100m 5% 3-year toxic convertibles to a BVI company called Kingfair Co Ltd, whose owner was not disclosed. The fixed conversion price (scrip adjusted) was $0.982 and the bonds were issued on 26-Jun-01. They were fully converted by 26-Jan-04. The average conversion price (adjusted) was $0.230.
On 22-Jul-02, in a connected transaction, Rexcapital International Holdings Ltd (RexInt, 0155) agreed to buy Rexcapital (Hong Kong) Ltd from Rexcapital Partners Incorporated, which in turn was 75% owned by Victor Chan How Chung, the Chairman and then 29.5% shareholder of RexInt, in return for HK$80m of 2-year toxic convertibles with a fixed conversion price of $0.36 (scrip-adjusted). The market price the previous trading day was $0.26. The acquisition was completed on 13-Dec-02. By the time the notes matured on 13-Dec-04, a total of $60m had been converted into shares at an average price of $0.070, a 73.1% discount to the market price when the bond was issued.
RexInt closed on 7-Jun-05 at $0.166, valuing the company at $456.9m. Net tangible assets at 30-Sep-04 were $346.2m, but this includes a receivable of $350m for the purported sale on 29-Oct-03 of 87.5% of REXCAPITAL Infrastructure Ltd (RI) to a BVI company called Sky China Holdings Ltd (Sky China), the owners of which have never been disclosed. Sky China has not paid a penny, and in the audit report for the year ended 31-Mar-04, Grant Thornton said "we have been unable to obtain sufficient information to satisfy ourselves as to the recoverability of a receivable". The reason the sale is so questionable is that in the 2 years ended 31-Mar-03, RI, which purportedly owns a fibre optic network in the PRC, recorded zero turnover. This business had been acquired for huge piles of cash in a series of transactions in 1999 and 2000, from a BVI company, the owner of which was not disclosed. The acquisition was made despite the PRC ban on foreign ownership of telecom networks.
BUBBLE WARNING: If you count the receivable at zero, and adjust for a recent placing and bond conversions, then RexInt has net tangible assets of only about HK$38m, so it is trading at about 12x adjusted net assets. If you own RexInt, get out now.
South Sea Petroleum
On 25-Nov-04, South Sea Petroleum Holdings Ltd (SSP, 0076) announced a HK$80m toxic convertible with companies represented by a man who had been negotiating "for a certain period of time" with the government authority of Mongolia to establish a 60:40 oil exploration joint venture in the country. The shares closed that day at $0.53, valuing SSP at HK$254m. On 4-Apr-05, the agreement was terminated, without shares being issued. By then, the shares had fallen to $0.39, down 26.4%.
As a footnote, readers may recall that SSP was a ramped stock which underwent a spectacular 1-day 88.9% crash on 31-Aug-04, falling from $3.325 to $0.37, during which some of the Chairman's shares were dumped by a margin lender. As in the case of Far East Pharmaceutical (see above), there had been no legal requirement for prior disclosure of the pledge.
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