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So what else is new? You need to stop assuming that everyone else knows less than you.
"Prospects are many, yet customer financing is the primary hurdle."
June 5, 2003
Tirex' primary objective continues to be to sell our patented cryogenic tire recycling system, the TCS, to our first commercial customer. In the meantime, our manufacturing partner Simpro S.p.A., is building a commercial facility in Italy to demonstrate the TCS technology.
Prospects are many, yet customer financing is the primary hurdle. Return on investment, even without government subsidies ( i.e. tipping fees) is very attractive and remains one of our stronger selling points. Further, we continue to see a need in the industry for new technology. With Simpro's ability to offer our first customers a performance bond, we believe it will insure the investors of the viability of our customers new tire recycling business.
Efforts are being made to restore us to the Bulletin Board and once reinstated we'll be in a more advantageous position to announce our relationship with Simpro (Dec'03,8K; see the Simpro profile posted on this web site under strategic alliances). This will also put Tirex and Simpro in a better position to exploit our technology.
Tirex management welcomes investors interested in investing in and/or joint venturing with companies wishing to purchase the TCS system from our manufacturing partner, Simpro, and thus engage in the recycling of tires and the production of marketable products with recycled content.
To our shareholders we say," hang in there"; and to new investors we welcome you as the market improves and Tirex moves forward.
John L. Threshie Jr.
http://www.tirex.com/memo.htm
Links sometimes expire at newspapers, and sites like Yahoo, as you well know, or you have to subscribe to search again. You can start here...check it all out.
REYNOLDS, Albert (Longford-Roscommon)1. (1) Ministerial pension: Oireachtas: (2) Director: Bula Resources Ltd; Blairton Ltd.; Aon McDonagh Boland Ltd; Jefferson Smurfit Group Plc.; APR Ltd, Singapore: (3) Church St, Co Longford: 2/3 Interest in property at Church St, Co. Longford. 3. (1) Blairton Ltd,: consultancy; (2) Aon McDonagh Boland Ltd,: insurance; (3) Jefferson Smurfit Plc; (4) Bula Resources Ltd;(5) Asia Pacific Resources (Plc) Singapore: Singapore: holiding company for strategic investments. 4. 2/3 interest in property (Church St, Co Longford)
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/special/2000/Register/
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=18843770
both the content and the defective weblink seem rather dated........: "...Network Error
Unable to request URL from host sbpost.beecher.net:80 through proxy server null:0: Operation timed out..."
Wrong again - I just don't like touts, and I know where your bias lies...and it's more than "a hobby" for you. Do yourself a favor and save some time - go back and read my earlier posts on this board.
Do you own any shares in LETH, currently have a Short position, or is the company just a sudden hobby...??? You seem very emotionally involved for an investor-/-trader who frequents stock discussion websites.
BTW - try reading your own posts again too...
ps: You've just been promoted to Director - so you can squelch any errant bashers....
Posted by: jmhollen
In reply to: LaFemNikita who wrote msg# 4 Date: 1/17/2003 11:55:17 AM
Post #
Actually.......................
I'm the "...Resident iHub & SI Board Freak....!!! Starting new boards is a "..Jones.." that I have, because I get to be Chairman that way...!! A latent "..power-trip/guy-thing.." perhaps; "...Bwahahahahahahahahahaha...................
No, I'm not a long. But, I do follow a lot of enviro-techies and may by some of this when the whiz-bang action slows down a little.
Certainly is good for our USA balance of trade situation.
John
ps: You've just been promoted to Director - so you can squelch any errant bashers....
"Dr. Christopher A. McCormack is, in addition to his position with the Company, the Chief Executive Officer of Maxol & CBBiofuels and the inventor of the DiGenter Process'TM'(10) for BioEthanol'TM'(11) production from biomass."
Source: 10K, MAY 2002
Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited is NOT the same company as Maxol or CB Biofuels.
"Look up Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited. It is one of six Maxol companies. Company number 221866. Address 28, Sourth Frederick Street, Dublin 2. See if you find that the company was formed in 1994, dissolved in 1999; Officers included Noel McMullen, Maxwell McMullen, and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Christopher McCormack. The Chairman was Gerard Black."
ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=LETH&read=930
Maxol & C.B. Manufacturing Limited
28 South Frederick Street
Dublin 2 (IE)
McCormack, Christopher Alphonsus
17 Tramway Court, Sutton
Dublin 13 (IE)
McCORMACK, Christopher,
Alphonsus
17 Tramway Court, Sutton
Dublin 13 (IE)
Q PCT/IE 96/00031 (En)
R WO 96/37627 () 28.11.1996
I C 12 P 017/18 Z C 07 D 491/10
A 00 853 624
158
CH PMMBI/FBDM/FBDM 3 15.2.2001
http://www.ige.ch/data/pmmbl/pmmbl01/P_2001_3_II.pdf
There are many companies at 28 South Frederick Street, among them:
IRISH ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS CARRIERS
c/o D'Arcy Smyth and Associates
28 South Frederick Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
Tel. (01) 676 5633 Fax. (01) 676 5641
E-mail: michael.darcy@darcysmyth.ie
As for the similarities in names -
"Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited" only has the "Maxol" part of the company name in common with Maxol, Ireland's independent oil company. McCormack was not part of the Ford-Maxol ceremony.
Noel and Maxwell McMullan are directors of Maxol. Gerard Black was then Chairman of Maxol and CB Biofuels, NOT "Maxol And C.B. Manufacturing Limited"
"The Ford reception was hosted by Irish Premier Bertie Ahern, attended by the Ford Brass, wherein the deal was announced."
The 1999 Ford "reception" was to hand over Ireland's first Ford Alternative Fuel Vehicle, donated by Ford to Maxol and CB Biofuels.
Maxol Bio Fuels
Ireland's first Ford Alternative Fuel Vehicle was donated by Ford to Maxol and CB Biofuels.
An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, TD officiated at the handover at Dublin Castle. The vehicle which was developed by Maxol and C B Biofuels, can operate efficiently on a mixture of up to 85% ethanol and 15% petrol, and will help to further research in producing low cost ethanol from biomass such as wheat, sugar beets, peat and waste agricultural materials.
Gerard Black, Chairman, Maxol & C B Biofuels commented in his speech at the presentation in Dublin Castle,
"In the early 1990?s Noel and Max McMullan became interested in this project. As directors of Maxol, Ireland's largest wholly Irish owned oil company, they had the vision
and commitment to back the development of new technology which had the potential of giving Ireland an alternative renewable energy which was and is environmentally
beneficial."
There has been worldwide concern over the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting potential global climate changes that may occur. These increases result primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels. For this reason, there has been an increased emphasis on the development of technologies to efficiently utilise non-fossil, renewable fuels, such as ethanol.
"This project was initiated in Beijing during 1996 meetings with Ford, Maxol and C B Biofuels and the Irish Ambassador to China", said Dr. Dennis Schuetzle, Director of Ford?s research and technology efforts in the Asia Pacific Region.
"Although there is much work to do, the prospect of producing a viable, renewable automotive fuel from waste biomass materials is very exciting."
Pictured in Dublin Castle accepting the car and celebrating its successful creation are:
(L-R) Noel McMullan, Director, Maxol Limited;
Dr, Dennis Schuetzle, Director Research and Technology, Ford Asia Pacific Operations;
Max McMullan, Director, Maxol Limited
and
Eddie Nolan, Chairman and Managing Director, Henry Ford & Son Ltd.
http://www.maxol.ie/news/dec99.pdf
"Albert arrived in Libya without the share certificates," he said, over Reynolds objections.
"I asked the managing director and he said they were stolen...we rang the police. After 24 hours they were found in your house. Albert, you brought all the Life Energy stuff with you."
Reynolds was enraged. "I'll take a thousand libels that I had the shares," he insisted, before moving the business of the meeting on.
The meeting eventually dragged to a close.
Even as Reynolds was insisting that the meeting was concluded, Con Casey was reading a statement on behalf of the remaining members of the board.
Bula would seek the return of the Bahraini funds, he said, and intends to seek redress if they are not forthcoming.
What is Life Energy?
Albert Reynolds has been involved in Life Energy for several years as non-executive chairman.
The US-registered company describes itself as a "sustainable developments company" and claims to have interests in a wide variety of fields.
It gained a listing on the Nasdaq -- although not a full listing -- after backing into a New York company called Health Pak in 2000.
Its share price has see-sawed of late, but judging by filings the company has made to the Secutities and Exchange Commission, Reynolds and the chief executive Chris McCormack have big plans for the future.
Accounts filed earlier this year showed sales of almost $12 million for the previous nine months.
It does appear, however, that not all of these sales were actually paid for. Nevertheless, if things go according to plan, revenues will be in the tens, or hundreds, of millions soon.
Life Energy's main current project is its "biosphere process", a waste-to-energy process that the company says it has developed and can commercially turn municipal waste into electricity.
However, another American company -- the Nathaniel Energy Corporation -- which was previously involved in a joint venture agreement with Life Energy, has said that it developed the process, and at one stage approached the former US ambassador Michael Sullivan to make representations on its behalf.
These were to secure the return of a prototype machine that Nathaniel said it owned and was in the possession of Life Energy.
Last year, Chris McCormack told The Sunday Business Post that he "owned the Nathaniel technology" through an entity called McCormack Consultants.
Before its move to the United States, Life Energy was headquartered at the "Reynolds-Romanov Research Institute" which was situated in Dundalk.
Dr Valeri Romanov, a Russian scientist was employed by the company as the head of its research division.
However, it is unclear exactly how much research was actually done in Dundalk and the company soon moved its operations to New York.
Life Energy has also been involved -- on and off -- in a strange dispute with a former Irish associate of the company. Claims by both the company and its former associate have been circulating for over a year.
http://sbpost.beecher.net/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-55746
And your reputation as a stock tout is well known, so stop the "attitude' nonsense.
Sure you do..you need to get over your potty-mouth problem before you grow up.
I think LETH has a responsibility to keep ALL investors informed with news releases that are explicit, informative and contain verifiable references to their claims of sales of Biospheres.
Until they provide proof of any of the sales they have claimed in their PRs I'll continue to treat them as as fluff-stuff.
BTW - why do touts always repeat the same tired old "call the company" refrain?
Why? There's enough spam out there already without inviting more.
"Policies"? Do they have those thingies? All I see are PRs that have claims of HUGE sales, but they can't provide a single verifiable link to support those claims.
If they can't provide basic information on the companies they say they have sold to, or have a "letter of intent" from, then they really have no credibility.
You really have a problem - and a TOS
I understand all that. It does not make a library archive into an industrial user though.
Why is LETH find it so difficult to provide verifiable references?
Still struggling to compose a coherent and comprehensible sentence?
and it was is English. Do you have a problem with my question?
Try again...
Are you a professional tout?
Alexander Rashkovsky (Charitable Fund "Vyatka Scientific Archival Commission", research on Vyatka
femida@victory.kirov.ru
http://www.mtu-net.ru/rrr/Researchers.htm
TO LIBRARIES MENU
Kirovskaya oblast'
Scientific & Technical Library of the Belaya Kholunitsa Engineering Plant of the Research & Industrial Corporation for Continuous Transport
Scientific & Technical Library of the Novovyatsk Particle Board Plant
Scientific & Technical Library of Krasnyj Kursant Paper Factory
Scientific & Technical Library of the Leather-Shoe Enterprise
Kirov Regional Scientific Medical Library
A.I. Gertsen Regional Scientific Universal Library
Central Scientific & Technical Library of Vyatka Scientific & Technical Information Center
Scientific & Technical Library of the May 1 Engineering Plant
Scientific & Technical Library of the Forest Industry Research Institute
Scientific & Technical Library of the Vyatka Forestry Engineering School
Scientific & Technical Library of the Vyatka Leather-Shoe Enterprise
Scientific & Technical Library of the Vyatka Forest Engineering College
Students' Library of the Vyatka Mechanical & Technological School
Scientific & Technical Library of the Vyatka Design & Technological Institute for Heavy Mechanical Engineering
Vyatka Polytechnic Institute, Library
Library of Vyatka Agricultural Institute
Scientific & Technical Library of the Vyatka Textile Mill
Scientific & Technical Library of Vyatka Garment Corporation Zarya
http://www.andrigal.com/ils99/li-lisre/li-re025.htm
"Viatka Scientific Archive Commission" - why would a scientific archive commission be buying Biospheres from LETH?
By: a_cool_drink
16 May 2003, 02:27 PM EDT Msg. 960041 of 960094
(This msg. is a reply to 960037 by scion.)
Jump to msg. #
OK.. here is your chance...
I have challenged all bashers to find ONE SINGLE canon of ethics I have allegedly violated.. and here is your chance.. I have provided the link below to the Rules of Professional Conduct for California Attorneys.... find me one single violation.. if you do not post one, then I advise you to shut up.
As far as the Cal Bar, Greg and his cronies already tried to report me and the bar did nothing because there is no actionable conduct.
But go ahead.. tell me exactly where I will be disciplined.. what specific code dipfukk!
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?sImagePath=Rules_of_Professional_Conduct.gi....
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PCBM&read=960041
By: a_cool_drink
16 May 2003, 02:29 PM EDT Msg. 960045 of 960094
(This msg. is a reply to 960039 by scion.)
Jump to msg. #
The State Bar did not warn me...
about my language.. but I was informed that some people were trying to report me everything from using vulgar language to being a paid pumper ...
As far as my source within the State Bar, the chances I give up my source to you is about as likely as you getting laid sometime this decade.. not very!
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PCBM&read=960045
By: a_cool_drink
16 May 2003, 03:21 PM EDT Msg. 960102 of 960106
(This msg. is a reply to 960099 by scion.)
Jump to msg. #
Lssten once and for all, dungwad...
They were already contacted by Greg Williams.. he and others rported me with a vigor only leading him to being sued and regretting his actions. Been there,done that, I won...
You can not find a violation off the rules of ethics, or else you would have posted it. So, do your best with the State Bar but know that I am coming for you... see you in Court chump....
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PCBM&read=960102
Treffry is probably hurting, deep inside.
By: a_cool_drink
16 May 2003, 02:11 PM EDT Msg. 960025 of 960085
(This msg. is a reply to 959988 by lizdrucker.)
Jump to msg. #
Your false statements about me being a paid tout..
have nothing to do with any curse words or other vulgarities posted on this board.. if you had responded in kind.. no problem.. you took it to another level in lying about me being a paid tout and an insider and then reporting it to the SEC, FBI and encouraging others to do the same...
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PCBM&read=960025
By: a_cool_drink
16 May 2003, 02:17 PM EDT Msg. 960031 of 960088
(This msg. is a reply to 960027 by scion.)
Jump to msg. #
First off, dunbshhjt...
You can remove the word "Obscenities" because naughty words are protected speech under the first amendment. HAve you ever heard of it before, you glactically stupid fukk? Perhaps we should go back to the days of arresting Lenny Bruce just for you? idiot...
Prove I sent one harassing email or made one harassing phone call. You have no evidence because there were none made.. another stupid fukk response by a totally stupid fukk...
Harassment and public threats.. show me one! I have threatened to sue and made comments regarding lawsuits, but I never made statements threatening physical harm to anyone. PLease.. go ahead and prove me wrong... post one!
Again, little Gerard is caught suckling mommmma's ##### again, lying about me like his ignorant pal, Dan Drucker. Has nothing to support his allegations.. just his stupidity...
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=PCBM&read=960031
BCSC scores appeal court win against offshore promoter
2003-05-01 14:37 ET - Street Wire
by Brent Mudry
The British Columbia Securities Commission has scored a double win against controversial former North Vancouver promoter Cameron Willard McEwen, targeted over a 1999 offshore Arizona gold mine promotion. In a unanimous 47-page decision released Wednesday, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia has rejected both appeals of Mr. McEwen, who is also currently in hot water with Australian authorities in a related case.
In a decision underlining the BCSC's broad powers, the appeal court upheld lower court judges' findings affirming the BCSC's investigation and enforcement powers, denying Mr. McEwen's bid to cross-examine former commission senior investigator Linda Murray and denying the promoter's bid to extend solicitor-client privilege beyond communications relating just to the provision of legal advice.
The decision of Madam Justice Mary Newbury, supported by Madam Justice Jo-Ann Prowse and Madam Justice Carol Mahood Huddart, comes six weeks after a March 17 hearing. The decision is a win for commission counsel Kristine McTaggart and a loss for defence counsel Douglas Hewson Christie of Victoria. Intervenor Mark Underhill made submissions on behalf of the Law Society of B.C., which is concerned about searches on lawyers' offices. Vancouver lawyer Bryce Dodds Stewart, who served as B.C. counsel for Mr. McEwen's Fortress International promotion, was a party to the lower court actions but not the appeal court round.
Mr. McEwen is the main BCSC target, and lawyer Mr. Stewart had the misfortune of being drawn into the lower court battles due to assertions of privilege. Even if Mr. Stewart was happy to hand over everything sought by the BCSC, he could not, as only clients, not lawyers, can waive privilege.
The B.C. court decision is the latest bad news for Mr. McEwen, who was temporarily barred from leaving mainland Australia on March 6, ordered to surrender his passport and barred from moving the assets of Fortress International and Great American Gold Ltd., the main companies in his unregistered offshore gold-mine investment scheme. The investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission was assisted by the BCSC, the Arizona Corporation Commission and the Arizona Department of Mines.
The continuing ASIC investigation centres on the alleged promotion of financial services in that country by Mr. McEwen, Fortress and Great American. Mr. McEwen, a Canadian national formerly in North Vancouver, moved to Arizona before recently relocating to Australia.
Mr. McEwen's offshore Arizona gold mine promotion involves three Bahamian-registered companies: Fortress International and Great American Gold, both operating from a postbox in Nassau, and Corporate Express Club Inc., with a head office in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, and an affiliate called Offshore Knowledge Network. The BCSC launched a formal probe under a Dec. 7, 1999, investigation order naming these companies and individuals Mr. McEwen, Patrick Thomas Stojak, also of North Vancouver, John Thomas McCarthy of Surrey and Lynn Ilene Sorsdahl of Kelowna, B.C., as investigation targets.
In a sworn affidavit, Mr. McEwen claims he is merely an "authorized agent" of Fortress, and not a principal corporate officer. Mr. McEwen's Fortress describes its "Arizona Mining Project" in an undated one-page information release and a three-page "Executive Sunmary (sic)." "It has proven and economically viable reserves of gold; the project has enormous revenue potential ... Product will be refined offshore. Revenues will accumulate and be disbursed offshore. The project will be privately owned and managed offshore," states the release.
According to the profile, Gold Gulch Mining Ltd. subleased 8,200 acres of exploration claims from AU Consolidated Inc., another Arizona company, in the Gold Gulch area in Cochise county, Arizona, about 70 miles east of Tucson. (Mr. McEwen, initially served at a North Vancouver residence, claims he lives in Willcox, Ariz., 10 miles from the property, aside from his extensive travels on company business.)
Great American Gold purportedly acquired Gold Gulch Mining and retained Fortress as its financial manager and agent. Fortress describes itself as a Bahamian company which "specializes in offshore corporate management services, offshore investment banking and corporate financing." If Fortess is to believed, the Gold Gulch project has a net present value of $230-million, based on proven reserves of 1.22 million ounces of gold, probable reserves of 5.31 million ounces, impressively low extraction costs of $75 an ounce, and an assumed gold price of $250 an ounce. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)
This is just the start. These figures, purportedly prepared by mining engineer James Coates, cover just 640 acres. "Assuming the values extend over the entire 8,200 acres of claims held by GAG, the net present value of the reserves is approximately USD$4,000,000,000," states Fortress. With probable reserves four times higher, the project could supposedly be worth about $16-billion.
Much of the Fortress records have been effectively sealed in court for several years pending the outcome of various court actions, so the BCSC has been stymied in its investigation. The appeal court ruling should help the BCSC jump-start its probe.
The focus of the first appeal is the BCSC's investigations and enforcement powers, given under the Securities Act, particularly the commission's ability to summon witnesses and compel the production of witnesses. The focus of the second appeal is to protect solicitor-client privilege, but make sure it is not abused or extended beyond its proper limits.
Much of the first appeal centred on Mr. McEwen's bid to turn the tables on the BCSC, and cross-examine Ms. Murray, the lead investigator, who has since left the commission for a new challenge, compliance at Wolverton Securities.
"In my view, no basis has been shown for the Court to exercise its discretion to allow Ms. Murray to be questioned on her affidavit at this stage," states Judge Newbury. "Cross-examination would delay the hearing of the petition for what appears to be a fishing expedition, frustrate the purposes of the Act, and impose an unnecessary layer of process on what the Supreme Court of Canada has said is intended to be an expeditious and cost-effective regulatory scheme."
The appeal court rejected all of Mr. Christie's arguments on this point.
"There is simply no basis in law for the notion that a person in CWM's position has a constitutionally-protected right to cross-examine an investigator on an affidavit filed in support of a petition in the circumstances of this case. If it were otherwise, what is intended to be a time- and cost-efficient administrative function would become an 'investigation of the investigators,' beset with all the formalities and delays of a criminal trial," states Judge Newbury.
The second appeal, regarding solicitor-client privilege, will likely be closely watched by lawyers and clients across Canada, as it reinforces the limits on claims of such privilege in searches of lawyers' offices. Other notable recent decisions include the Lavallee decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on Dec. 13 and the Festing decision in the Court of Appeal for B.C. on Feb. 25.
The McEwen case was concerning enough that the Law Society of B.C. intervened. Counsel Mr. Underhill noted his submissions were made without prejudice, as the law society sometime in the future may question the constitutionality of Section 148 of the Securities Act, as it pertains to solicitor-client privilege. Mr. Underhill requested the appeal court issue directions to apply in future cases to demands and summonses issued under the Securities Act to lawyers and their agents and employees, but the court ruled this would now be just an academic exercise in the McEwen case.
Mr. McEwen claimed privilege on virtually every document or communication handled by lawyer Mr. Stewart.
"I considered all my communications as (Fortress) agent, and all the documents I have reviewed as being privileged because they were all communicated subject to and for the purpose of obtaining his legal advice on each and every document or instruction should he be of the opinion that any were illegal or even questionable," stated the promoter in an Oct. 23, 2001, affidavit. "I am shocked that these confidential documents are now being reviewed by the court to breach my solicitor/client privilege and secrecy."
Defence lawyer Mr. Christie argued that when a solictor and client anticipate and expect their business will be "secret and private," a court of law cannot or should not assert what he called "inquisitorial powers over solicitors."
The appeal court, however, noted that Mr. Christie tried to blend the concepts of solicitor-client privilege and confidentiality. "There is no doubt that lawyers are under an obligation to keep confidential all documents and other communications made to them by their clients, but not all such communications are subject to solicitor-client privilege and a claim of privilege does not convert non-privileged documents into privileged documents," states Judge Newbury.
The appeal court noted the lower court judge set out four criteria for claiming privilege in the McEwen case, which were not challenged by defence lawyer Mr. Christie. The critical point was the final one, "the communication must be directly related to the seeking, formulating or giving of legal advice." Mr. McEwen and Fortress lawyer Mr. Stewart had unsuccessfully asserted a blanket privilege in the lower court.
In the lower court, Mr. McEwen and his counsel unsuccessfully contended that privilege applied broadly to even such documents as banking records or communications between a lawyer and third parties, such as investors and others, "because of the client's expectation that (lawyer) BDS would advise continuously on the legality of all aspects of all transactions."
The appeal court dismissed this appeal.
The message is clear to all securities investigation targets who try to deter pesky investigators by asserting privilege on everything by asserting solicitor-client privilege: You can run, but you can't hide.
Mr. McEwen, of course, remains presumed innocent of any wrongdoing until the BCSC or the ASIC prove otherwise.
bmudry@stockwatch.com
"there is only one title fitting enough for slurp's masterpiece of a book:
"Felching For Pennies -
Complaints Against Attorneys"
1-800-843-9053 (toll free in California)
213-765-1200 (from outside California)
All lawyers who practice in California must live up to ethical standards imposed by the California Supreme Court and the State Legislature. As an arm of the California Supreme Court, the State Bar investigates and prosecutes complaints against lawyers.
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_home.jsp
Irish-American firm battles 'consultant without contract'
Sunday, October 07, 2001
An Irish-American company, which is quoted on the Nasdaq and predicts annual incomes of £2 billion in the future, has become involved in a bitter row with an Irish former-associate of the firm called Seamus Lagan.
Chris McCormack, the president and chief executive of Life Energy, has predicted that a number of civil legal actions will be taken in the US, arising from the company's falling out with Lagan.
The former taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, is non-executive chairman of the company, although it should be stressed that he has no involvement in the day-to-day running of the company.
He referred all queries from The Sunday Business Post regarding the affair to McCormack.
The dispute dates back to the departure of Lagan from the company earlier this year. Lagan says that he was running the Irish operations of Life Energy, although McCormack insists that he had no official role in the company. He described Lagan as a "consultant without contract".
However, McCormack conceded that Lagan had an agreement with Life Energy for remuneration and 300,000 shares in the company, but insists he was not an employee.
In an interview last week he appeared to contradict himself by saying that the board "cancelled the contract in March".
Lagan had been with the company since the previous April/May.
Lagan left the company (in circumstances that are disputed) in February of this year. Lagan is an undischarged bankrupt in Northern Ireland. He says he now buys and sells shares online and is also involved in promoting a company called BTSL Technologies.
This company was registered in the past three weeks and is believed to be developing waste incineration technology.
Lagan also operates a company called Agamede from an apartment near the IFSC. Agamede's website offers courses in how to trade shares online.
Life Energy describes itself as a "sustainable developments company".
A recent document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that the company anticipates massive investment over the coming years.
Although it says it has research interests in other areas -- including oil and gas and mobile telephony -- Life Energy's principal interest is in development of what it calls the "Biosphere Process", a means of producing electricity by burning municipal waste.
According to its SEC filing, the company has signed an agreement with a manufacturing subcontractor for the first 50 Biosphere systems.
The company has paid a deposit of $50 million by issuing shares to the manufacturer. Another $200 million -- the remaining 80 per cent -- will have to be paid.
The company's SEC filing states that the systems are "nearing completion" and will be distributed in Africa and the Middle East. These will generate an income of more than £4 million a month, which it says will commence in the coming months.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg of the company's ambitions.
According to the SEC filing, Life Energy is "concluding contract discussions" for an additional 2,000 machines, although elsewhere in the document it says it has "orders" for the machines. This will entail the spending of $10 billion, although the filing states that no credit facilities have yet been arranged.
The company envisages that each machine -- which will be leased over a 15-year period -- will generate $83,000 per month. 2050 machines would thus generate an annual income of over $2 billion.
At one point it was thought that Life Energy would engage in a joint venture with a US company called Nathaniel Energy Corporation which initially developed a prototype burner.
However, relations have broken down between Nathaniel and Life Energy, to the extent that Nathaniel's chief executive officer, Stan Abrahams, asked the US ambassador to Dublin, Michael Sullivan, to intervene to secure the release of a prototype burner earlier this year.
A spokesman for Nathaniel last week confirmed that the dispute is ongoing.
However, McCormack told The Sunday Business Post that he "owned the Nathaniel technology", through an entity called McCormack Consultants.
McCormack Consultants are also employed by Life Energy.
Last year, Life Energy set up a company in the Sciences Services Centre in Dundalk (an initiative of the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce) which it called the Reynolds-Romanov Research Institute.
Dr Valeri Romanov, a Russian scientist and former head of the control systems of the USSR's nuclear submarine and missile programme, was engaged by the company as head of its research division.
The company left Dundalk at the end of March this year, having occupied premises there since September.
The Dundalk Enterprise Development Company, which is landlord of the Sciences Services Centre, says that it is owed £90,000 in rent.
A spokesman for the company said that it was taking legal action against Life Energy to recover the money. Proceedings are to be issued shortly, he said.
McCormack insists that Life Energy (the US company) has "no relationship with the Dundalk Enterprise Development Company", although the SEC filing indicates that the US company acquired the Irish registered Life Energy company last November.
However, last week McCormack said his company had "no intention of paying a full year's rent".
Life Energy never signed a lease, he said, but he had instructed the company's solicitors to reach a settlement.
He also said that he "still had amicable relations with them." He stressed that Life Energy left Ireland because it was offered considerable inducements by state and local authorities in New York.
He said that Life Energy had been given a $30 million grant. No funding had been available for the company in Ireland.
Life Energy has moved its operations to Utica, New York, to the former premises of a company called Health-Pak, although it still maintains an office in Dublin.
Life Energy reversed into Health-Pak last year to gain a Nasdaq listing. Last year, its shares reached a high of $4.80 (November 24) but are currently trading at 51 cents.
According to the SEC filing, 75 per cent of the class 1 shares in the company are owned by the Liberatore family (who previously owned Health-Pak), McCormack, Reynolds and three Isle of Man-registered companies, Eden Developments, McIntosh Enterprises and Chalise Investments.
McCormack declined to say who owned the Isle of Man companies, but said that they were "fully checked out by our attorneys".
Documents obtained from the companies registration authorities on the Isle of Man show that the three companies -- which Chris McCormack said have been checked out by his attorneys -- are owned in turn by nominee companies. The shares in all three companies with holdings in Life Energy are owned by Mt Holdings and Mt Nominees, both companies registered in the Isle of Man.
The directors of the nominee companies are Isle of Man-based accountants and tax advisers, making it impossible to establish who are the beneficial owners of the three companies.
http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2001/10/07/story307028.asp
"Albert arrived in Libya without the share certificates," he said, over Reynolds objections.
"I asked the managing director and he said they were stolen...we rang the police. After 24 hours they were found in your house. Albert, you brought all the Life Energy stuff with you."
Reynolds was enraged. "I'll take a thousand libels that I had the shares," he insisted, before moving the business of the meeting on.
The meeting eventually dragged to a close.
Even as Reynolds was insisting that the meeting was concluded, Con Casey was reading a statement on behalf of the remaining members of the board.
Bula would seek the return of the Bahraini funds, he said, and intends to seek redress if they are not forthcoming.
What is Life Energy?
Albert Reynolds has been involved in Life Energy for several years as non-executive chairman.
The US-registered company describes itself as a "sustainable developments company" and claims to have interests in a wide variety of fields.
It gained a listing on the Nasdaq -- although not a full listing -- after backing into a New York company called Health Pak in 2000.
Its share price has see-sawed of late, but judging by filings the company has made to the Secutities and Exchange Commission, Reynolds and the chief executive Chris McCormack have big plans for the future.
Accounts filed earlier this year showed sales of almost $12 million for the previous nine months.
It does appear, however, that not all of these sales were actually paid for. Nevertheless, if things go according to plan, revenues will be in the tens, or hundreds, of millions soon.
Life Energy's main current project is its "biosphere process", a waste-to-energy process that the company says it has developed and can commercially turn municipal waste into electricity.
However, another American company -- the Nathaniel Energy Corporation -- which was previously involved in a joint venture agreement with Life Energy, has said that it developed the process, and at one stage approached the former US ambassador Michael Sullivan to make representations on its behalf.
These were to secure the return of a prototype machine that Nathaniel said it owned and was in the possession of Life Energy.
Last year, Chris McCormack told The Sunday Business Post that he "owned the Nathaniel technology" through an entity called McCormack Consultants.
Before its move to the United States, Life Energy was headquartered at the "Reynolds-Romanov Research Institute" which was situated in Dundalk.
Dr Valeri Romanov, a Russian scientist was employed by the company as the head of its research division.
However, it is unclear exactly how much reserach was actually done in Dundalk and the company soon moved its operations to New York.
Life Energy has also been involved -- on and off -- in a strange dispute with a former Irish associate of the company. Claims by both the company and its former associate have been circulating for over a year.
http://sbpost.beecher.net/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-55746
"Accounts filed earlier this year showed sales of almost $12 million for the previous nine months.
It does appear, however, that not all of these sales were actually paid for. Nevertheless, if things go according to plan, revenues will be in the tens, or hundreds, of millions soon."
Reynolds jumps off rollercoaster
By Pat Leahy
Dublin, Ireland, 15 September, 2002
Former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds finally accepted the whiskey and the revolver at the Bula Resources agm last week, after three and a half turbulent years at the head of the troubled exploration company.
That period has been one of disappointment and frustration for the estimated 40,000 small shareholders, and Reynolds had to bear the brunt of their feelings for three hours last Monday. When, halfway through the proceedings, he announced that he would not, after all, seek re-election to the board, nobody asked him to stay.
Reynolds' enemies were not only on the floor among the shareholders. Beside him at the top table sat the two other directors, Tom Kelly and Omar Yazigi, and the acting secretary, Con Casey. All three men disputed Reynolds' accounts of different events.
It should be pointed out that some shareholders spoke up in support of Reynolds. Also, there is little doubt that Bula had big troubles before Reynolds arrived.
The picture that emerged last week was a confused one, and shareholders are left with many questions, and little hope of ever recovering their investments.
Reynolds began the meeting in bullish form. However, he soon struck a defensive note, insisting that he had only ever been the non-executive chairman.
"I should emphasise that I never sought or oversold that position, where others did. I never did," he said.
Reynolds repeatedly emphasised throughout the meeting that he only ever held a non-executive role in Bula.
However, this was not actually always the case. For a period in 2001 following the departure of former chief executive John Hogan and prior to the appointment of Tom Kelly, Reynolds was described in statements that the company issued to the Stock Exchange as both "executive chairman" and "chairman and chief executive".
Reynolds charged on. He insisted that the formal censure that the Stock Exchange had issued to Bula earlier this year -- because he exercised share options during a closed period last August -- represented "a clear-cut censure for management and none for me."
Announcing a "five point plan" to bring the company forward, he declared: "that's the five point plan. There's no reason why a few more points can't be put onto it if you like." It wasn't the sort of performance that was calculated to get shareholders back onside. And it was going to get worse.
During questions from shareholders, it soon emerged that the two main sources of dispute among the board were Libya and Bahrain. Reynolds claimed to have secured a deal in Bahrain -- "an enhancement production deal" -- with a "refundable deposit" of $1.5 million to someone described at the meeting as "the Bahraini general".
However, this deal had been rejected by managing director Tom Kelly because of a "conflict of interest" with another company chaired by Reynolds, Life Energy.
It was not clear exactly what this conflict of interest entailed. However, the deal clearly caused consternation in the company.
Kelly blocked it; the following January (2002), when secretary Con Casey became aware of it, Casey resigned. The company brokers, Davy Stockbrokers, also resigned on becoming aware of it earlier this year.
Casey claimed during the meeting that Reynolds sought to exclude him from meetings of the board.
"The minutes are available for anyone to read," protested Reynolds. Of course, they are not; a point he quickly conceded.
So the deal did not proceed, but the refundable deposit has not been refunded. Reynolds insists vehemently that the money will be repaid soon -- in 14 days, he insisted on one occasion.
He also repeatedly offered to buy the deal from Bula -- either on his own behalf or on behalf of Life Energy.
"It's going to make a fortune for me," he said. But it's also unclear what Life Energy would do with it.
It's known that Life Energy is attempting to build business in the Middle East. In March of this year Reynolds -- wearing his Life Energy hat -- wrote to her Royal Highness Sheikha Salama Bint Sultan Bin Zayad Al Nahyan to thank her for her "gracious sponsorship of our burgeoning business activities in the Gulf Coast, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates".
Last year, The Sunday Business Post reported that Reynolds had visited Algeria on business for both -- it seemed -- Life Energy and Bula. At that time, the company swatted away any questions of a conflict of interest.
The name of Life Energy also came up repeatedly as the board members swapped conflicting accounts of Bula's Libyan travails.
Bula announced that two Libyan investment companies -- one of them owned by a charity headed by Colonel Gadaffi's son -- were investing in the company last December.
However, the deal was not completed and the money never arrived.
Reynolds promised that the Libyans would pay up as soon as the stock market quote was restored. He had travelled to Libya to collect the money in April, he said, but it had not been forthcoming.
It soon emerged that certificates for 75 million shares had been issued for the Libyan investment, and properly entered on the company's share register -- even though they had not been paid for.
Tom Kelly told the meeting that Reynolds had attempted to get the meeting postponed -- immediately beforehand -- because of concerns about these shares.
"I would expect that my executives would have the share register in order," Reynolds said.
However, Kelly claimed -- over Reynolds' objections -- that he was asked to produce share certificates in March of this year so Reynolds could bring them to Libya and present them to the investors. Con Casey backed him up: "I was instrumental in registering the shares," he said. "The sole purpose was to facilitate Albert Reynolds travelling to Libya."
"It's right or it's wrong," barked Reynolds. "I am entitled to expect my executives to behave..."
"Let me say..." began Casey again.
"Stop it, Con," Reynolds ordered. "Why are you..."
Before he could finish, a shareholder shouted from the audience: "You're getting fifty thousand a year!" "If you think fifty thousand is a great salary for what I'm doing..." Reynolds began.
"On a point of order!" shouted someone else. "Never mind your point of order," Reynolds retorted. It seemed to be the turning point for Reynolds. "Before you go any further," he said, "because of a potential conflict of interest, I will not be putting my name forward for re-election."
In answer to vigorous questioning, he stated: "I won't live with any suggestions that there was any kickbacks in anything I did."
The shareholders wanted answers. And Omar Yazigi, who had accompanied Reynolds to Libya wanted to clear a few things up.
"Albert arrived in Libya without the share certificates," he said, over Reynolds objections.
"I asked the managing director and he said they were stolen...we rang the police. After 24 hours they were found in your house. Albert, you brought all the Life Energy stuff with you."
Reynolds was enraged. "I'll take a thousand libels that I had the shares," he insisted, before moving the business of the meeting on.
The meeting eventually dragged to a close.
Even as Reynolds was insisting that the meeting was concluded, Con Casey was reading a statement on behalf of the remaining members of the board.
Bula would seek the return of the Bahraini funds, he said, and intends to seek redress if they are not forthcoming.
What is Life Energy?
Albert Reynolds has been involved in Life Energy for several years as non-executive chairman.
The US-registered company describes itself as a "sustainable developments company" and claims to have interests in a wide variety of fields.
It gained a listing on the Nasdaq -- although not a full listing -- after backing into a New York company called Health Pak in 2000.
Its share price has see-sawed of late, but judging by filings the company has made to the Secutities and Exchange Commission, Reynolds and the chief executive Chris McCormack have big plans for the future.
Accounts filed earlier this year showed sales of almost $12 million for the previous nine months.
It does appear, however, that not all of these sales were actually paid for. Nevertheless, if things go according to plan, revenues will be in the tens, or hundreds, of millions soon.
Life Energy's main current project is its "biosphere process", a waste-to-energy process that the company says it has developed and can commercially turn municipal waste into electricity.
However, another American company -- the Nathaniel Energy Corporation -- which was previously involved in a joint venture agreement with Life Energy, has said that it developed the process, and at one stage approached the former US ambassador Michael Sullivan to make representations on its behalf.
These were to secure the return of a prototype machine that Nathaniel said it owned and was in the possession of Life Energy.
Last year, Chris McCormack told The Sunday Business Post that he "owned the Nathaniel technology" through an entity called McCormack Consultants.
Before its move to the United States, Life Energy was headquartered at the "Reynolds-Romanov Research Institute" which was situated in Dundalk.
Dr Valeri Romanov, a Russian scientist was employed by the company as the head of its research division.
However, it is unclear exactly how much reserach was actually done in Dundalk and the company soon moved its operations to New York.
Life Energy has also been involved -- on and off -- in a strange dispute with a former Irish associate of the company. Claims by both the company and its former associate have been circulating for over a year.
http://sbpost.beecher.net/story.jsp?story=WCContent;id-55746
Operations Management
The Natural Resource Division is managed by Mr. Salim Ghafari, Vice President for Middle Eastern Operations.
The Waste to Energy Division is managed by Mr. Kevin McCormack Vice-President for Operations, this division is responsible for the sale of the Biosphere Process'TM' System.
The technology has already been successfully promoted in the Middle East and Africa. Agency agreements have been entered into to promote the Biosphere Process'TM' in South East Asia and the Pacific Rim, and throughout Africa.
Two complete Systems have been assembled and tested and are presently in operation for demonstration purposes.
The Manufacturing Division is managed by Mr. Brian Larkin Vice-President for Operations, this division manages the contract-manufacture of the Biosphere Process'TM' Systems.
As previously stated, manufacturing is currently contracted
to an independent third party which subcontracts all operations principally but not exclusively in Russia. This same contract manufacturer will provide ongoing service and support for all of the Systems it produces in Russia.
LIFE ENERGY & TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS INC filed this 10KSB on 09/16/2002.
Item 11. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management.
The following table sets forth at May 31, 2002, the stock ownership of each
person known by the Company to be a beneficial owner of five per cent (5%) or
more of the Company's Common Stock, individually and as a group.
Number Percentage
Relationship of shares of
Name and Address to Company class (1)
------------------------ ---------------- ------------- -------------
Anthony J. Liberatore Officer, Director 1,667,326 11.74
Elizabeth Liberatore (2) Shareholder
307 Tumbleweed Drive
Utica, NY 13502
Chalise Investments Shareholder 2,346,000 11.74
Fernleigh House
Place Road
Douglas Isle of Man,
Eden Development Shareholder 2,346,000 11.74
Fernleigh House
Place Road
Douglas Isle of Man,
McIntosh Enterprises Ltd. Shareholder 2,346,000 11.74
19 Mount Havelock
Douglas Isle of Man
IM1 2QC
Michael Liberatore Officer, Director 50,000 .025
105 Evergreen Drive
Utica, NY 13502
William Meola Officer, Director 33,195 .0166
1119 Columbus Ave.
Utica, NY 13501
Dr. Christopher McCormack Officer, Director 735,000 3.68
St. Augustine Offinton Ave
Sutton Dublin 13, Ireland
Albert Reynolds Officer, Director 735,000 3.68
18 Aylesbury Road
Dublin 2, Ireland
Mark Liberatore Stockholder 1,775,718 9.889
448 Oakdale Ave
Utica, NY 13502
Officers and Directors as a
Group (5 persons) (1) 3,220,521 16.12
--------------------------
(1) These Shares represent a portion of the total Shares owned by the
Liberatore Family which, when combined with the Shares owned by
Michael Liberatore, an officer and director of the Company and other
members of the Liberatore family total 3,693,044. As mentioned
earlier, the Liberatore Family has agreed to cancel approximately
1,000,000 of these Shares in exchange for the re-conveyance to the
Liberatore Family of 100% of the capital stock of Health-Pak New York,
the Company's bankrupt subsidiary whose operations have been
terminated. As part of this transaction, the Liberatore Family has
agreed to cause Health-Pak New York to convey to the Company the
building and property owned at 2005 Beechgrove Place, Utica, NY. The
final number of Shares that will be surrendered depends in major part
upon the final valuation of this property and upon the terms and
conditions, if any, imposed by the Bankruptcy Court in approving this
transaction. Final approval of the Bankruptcy Court is expected by the
end of calendar year 2002.
(2) These Shares are owned jointly by Anthony Liberatore and his wife
Elizabeth Liberatore.
(3) Mark Liberatore is the son of Anthony Liberatore. However, he is neither
an officer or director of the Company and he is independent of his father.
LETH - share data
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorized: 100,000,000
Source: 10QSB
Date: 04/10/2003
Issued and Outstanding: 19,841,893
Source: 10QSB
Date: 04/10/2003
Public Float:N/A
Par Value:0.002
Source: 10QSB
Date: 04/10/2003
http://www.knobias.com/individual/research/basicprofile.htm?..
LETH - significant elements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State of Inc: DELAWARE 2000
Fiscal Year End: May 31
Development Stage? N
# Locations: 3
# Employees: 12
# Shareholders: 253
Industry:Conglomerates
Sector (SIC): 6719
Internet Focus? No
http://www.knobias.com/individual/research/basicprofile.htm?...
LETH - management & insiders
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Albert Reynolds, CB
Christopher A. McCormack, PR/COO/DIR/CEO
Salim Ghafari, VP/DIR
Anthony Liberatore, VP/DIR
Michael Liberatore, SEC/CFO/DIR
William Meola, DIR
Chalise Investments, BO
Eden Development, BO
McIntosh Enterprises Ltd., BO
Mark Liberatore, BO
Kevin Mccormack, VP
Brian Larkin, VP
http://www.knobias.com/individual/research/basicprofile.htm?...
LETH business summary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURRENT BUSINESS INFORMATION: Life Energy & Technology Holdings, Inc. has been an energy, technology, natural resources and financial services holding company. It conducts its various operations through twenty-three subsidiary companies, six of which are wholly owned. The Company's subsidiaries are involved in various businesses, including oil and gas, real estate, industrial and agricultural machinery production, solid waste management and conversion, industrial construction, research, and computer technology.
The Company developed the Biosphere Process System, which is an autonomous multifuel micro-power electricity generation system. The Company sells and leases the system to government entities and corporate clients worldwide. The Biosphere Process System is a mobile, modular micro-power plant that consumes and recycles 100% of traditional waste materials.
HISTORICAL BUSINESS INFORMATION: The Company originally named Morgan Windsor, Ltd. was incorporated in Delaware on December 28, 1987. The only operations of the Company at that time were to structure a public offering of its securities. Thereafter, the Company began to search for a viable business opportunity.
In April 1991, the Company acquired Health-Pak, Inc., a New York corporation.
The Company's primary business up until 1999 was the manufacture and/or distribution of reusable and nonwoven disposable textile products, including apparel such as examination gowns, lab coats, surgical gowns, coveralls and ancillary items such as aprons, masks, caps, covers, surgical draperies, diapers and underpads, towels, wipes, cloths and sterilization wraps and other related products, which were sold primarily to the hospital and medical marketplace and non-medical fleece sportswear, winter wear and golf wear sold primarily to customers in the regular clothing industry.
In June 2000, Health-Pak Inc. filed petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy laws in the United States Bankruptcy Court in the northern District of New York. The former business operations of the Company, conducted through its wholly owned subsidiary, Health-Pak, Inc., were discontinued and a formal plan for the disposal of Health-Pak was adopted upon the merger with Life Energy Technology Holdings, Ltd.
In December 2000, the Company completed the acquisition of Life Energy Technology Holdings, Ltd. In connection with the acquisition, the Company changed its name to Life Energy Technology Holdings, Ltd. Pursuant to the merger agreement, the Company issued 5,691,893 shares of common stock to the former shareholders Health-Pak Inc.
In 2001, the Company introduced "Sonic Sealed" garments, which are items produced by a sonic welding process at the seams. The garments are manufactured by ultrasonic equipment which essentially changes the molecular structure of the material being made to form a complete and impenetrable seal at the point of closure.
In February 2001 the Company took delivery in Ireland of the two Biosphere Process'TM' systems. The cost to build the system, which was manufactured in Russia, was $9,500,000. The system was transferred to North Africa to be used as a model for potential buyers of the Biosphere Process'TM' system.
In April 2001, the Company issued 1,608,000 shares of Series B preferred to purchase a 40% interest in Life Energy Natural Resources, Inc (LENR), a company affiliated to the Company by common ownership.
In November 2001, the Company entered into a contract to lease the two Biosphere Process'TM'(7) Systems to a private company located in Lebanon. The lease calls for the payment of $2,020,000 per year for twenty-five years.
In February 2002, the Company and Eastern Hope Company entered into a contract to sell two Biosphere Process 1Systems for deployment in Thailand.
In March 2002, the Company announced it had met all of the requirements to allow the Company to draw down the first $200,000,000 of a significant loan. The funds will be used to enhance the Company's operations and assist in ongoing developments in the Middle East.
MISCELLANEOUS BUSINESS INFORMATION: At May 31, 2002, the Company had a working capital deficit of $4,657,146 as compared to $3,887,077 at the end of fiscal year 2001.
At May 31, 2002, the Company owes its employees $3,719,375 for salaries unpaid to date. At May 31, 2001, unpaid salaries were $1,340,671.
Cash on hand was $1,056 at May 31, 2002. Cash increased during this fiscal year from $75 at the end of fiscal 2001.
Total shareholder equity at May 31, 2002 was $29,440,879 as compared to $28,566,508 as of August 31, 2002.
Accumulated deficit as of August 31, 2002 was $5,367,055 and as of May 31, 2002 was $6,241,426.
Total assets at May 31, 2002 were $41,890,949 as compared to $27,244,912. Most of the increase was the recognition of the gross investment upon the lease of the two Biosphere Systems in November 2001.
http://www.knobias.com/individual/members/membersonly/resear...
"an elected member of both the Physiological Society and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology..."
ARVO Membership Directory Search
https://secure.arvo.org/cgi-bin/search/membership.cgi
Please provide the following information to check current membership records:
LAST NAME:
FIRST NAME (optional):
Note: The search is not case-sensitive.
A last name must be specified and spelled correctly.
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Search: McCormack, Christopher
Sorry, no matching records.
Search: McCormack
Membership #: 25553 Current Year Membership Category: R Section: EY
Glen L. McCormack OD PhD
Visual Science
New England Coll of Optometry
424 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: 617-236-6235 Fax: 617-369-0174
E-mail: mccormackg@ne-optometry.edu
http://www.arvo.org/root/index.asp
DR. CHRISTOPHER A. MCCORMACK, B.Sc., Ph. D., N.I.H.C., M. PS, M.ARVO, F.F., Ful. S. will serve both as a Director and Chief Executive Officer of Registrant. Dr McCormack also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Maxol & CB Biofuels and the inventor of the DiGenter'TM' process for BioEthanol'TM' production from biomass...
...In addition to being an elected member of both the Physiological Society and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology..."
http://www.secinfo.com/$/SEC/Page.asp?P=950117-0-2602-1-2-4903
"...In addition to being an elected member of both the Physiological Society and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology..."
Life Sciences Directory
The Life Sciences Directory is the joint membership directory of the
Biochemical Society
British Society for Cell Biology
Nutrition Society
Physiological Society
Society for Endocrinology
Name: McCormack
First Initial: C.
SEARCH:
The following record(s) matched your query:
NONE FOUND
http://www.lifescientists.org/default.asp
DR. CHRISTOPHER A. MCCORMACK, B.Sc., Ph. D., N.I.H.C., M. PS, M.ARVO, F.F., Ful. S. will serve both as a Director and Chief Executive Officer of Registrant. Dr McCormack also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Maxol & CB Biofuels and the inventor of the DiGenter'TM' process for BioEthanol'TM' production from biomass...
...In addition to being an elected member of both the Physiological Society and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology..."
http://www.secinfo.com/$/SEC/Page.asp?P=950117-0-2602-1-2-4903
"A member of the International Road Transport Union since 1996, Dr McCormack served as the first ever Director General of the Irish Road Haulage Association, and was credited with revolutionizing the Irish transport industries public image in Europe."
Source: 10K May 2002
Irish Road Haulage Association.The IRHA was founded in 1973
HSA ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DANGEROUS
SUBSTANCES
Dr Christopher McCormack, Irish Road Haulage Association
http://www.hsa.ie/pub/annual_reports/annual_report98/append.pdf
Irish Road Haulage Association
The IRHA was founded in 1973 to represent and promote the interests of the licensed transport industry at home and abroad and to provide assistance and value for money to hauliers. Their web address is: www.irha.ie
http://www.hsa.ie/pub/annual_reports/annual_report98/append.pdf
"Dr. Christopher A. McCormack is, in addition to his position with the Company, the Chief Executive Officer of Maxol & CBBiofuels and the inventor of the DiGenter Process'TM'(10) for BioEthanol'TM'(11) production from biomass."
Source: 10K, MAY 2002
Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited is NOT the same company as Maxol or CB Biofuels.
"Look up Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited. It is one of six Maxol companies. Company number 221866. Address 28, Sourth Frederick Street, Dublin 2. See if you find that the company was formed in 1994, dissolved in 1999; Officers included Noel McMullen, Maxwell McMullen, and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Christopher McCormack. The Chairman was Gerard Black."
ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=LETH&read=930
Maxol & C.B. Manufacturing Limited
28 South Frederick Street
Dublin 2 (IE)
McCormack, Christopher Alphonsus
17 Tramway Court, Sutton
Dublin 13 (IE)
McCORMACK, Christopher,
Alphonsus
17 Tramway Court, Sutton
Dublin 13 (IE)
Q PCT/IE 96/00031 (En)
R WO 96/37627 () 28.11.1996
I C 12 P 017/18 Z C 07 D 491/10
A 00 853 624
158
CH PMMBI/FBDM/FBDM 3 15.2.2001
http://www.ige.ch/data/pmmbl/pmmbl01/P_2001_3_II.pdf
There are many companies at 28 South Frederick Street, among them:
IRISH ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL EXPRESS CARRIERS
c/o D'Arcy Smyth and Associates
28 South Frederick Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
Tel. (01) 676 5633 Fax. (01) 676 5641
E-mail: michael.darcy@darcysmyth.ie
As for the similarities in names -
"Maxol and C.B. Manufacturing Limited" only has the "Maxol" part of the company name in common with Maxol, Ireland's independent oil company. McCormack was not part of the Ford-Maxol ceremony.
Noel and Maxwell McMullan are directors of Maxol. Gerard Black was then Chairman of Maxol and CB Biofuels, NOT "Maxol And C.B. Manufacturing Limited"
"The Ford reception was hosted by Irish Premier Bertie Ahern, attended by the Ford Brass, wherein the deal was announced."
The 1999 Ford "reception" was to hand over Ireland's first Ford Alternative Fuel Vehicle, donated by Ford to Maxol and CB Biofuels.
Maxol Bio Fuels
Ireland's first Ford Alternative Fuel Vehicle was donated by Ford to Maxol and CB Biofuels.
An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, TD officiated at the handover at Dublin Castle. The vehicle which was developed by Maxol and C B Biofuels, can operate efficiently on a mixture of up to 85% ethanol and 15% petrol, and will help to further research in producing low cost ethanol from biomass such as wheat, sugar beets, peat and waste agricultural materials.
Gerard Black, Chairman, Maxol & C B Biofuels commented in his speech at the presentation in Dublin Castle,
"In the early 1990?s Noel and Max McMullan became interested in this project. As directors of Maxol, Ireland's largest wholly Irish owned oil company, they had the vision
and commitment to back the development of new technology which had the potential of giving Ireland an alternative renewable energy which was and is environmentally
beneficial."
There has been worldwide concern over the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases, especially CO2 in the atmosphere and the resulting potential global climate changes that may occur. These increases result primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels. For this reason, there has been an increased emphasis on the development of technologies to efficiently utilise non-fossil, renewable fuels, such as ethanol.
"This project was initiated in Beijing during 1996 meetings with Ford, Maxol and C B Biofuels and the Irish Ambassador to China", said Dr. Dennis Schuetzle, Director of Ford?s research and technology efforts in the Asia Pacific Region.
"Although there is much work to do, the prospect of producing a viable, renewable automotive fuel from waste biomass materials is very exciting."
Pictured in Dublin Castle accepting the car and celebrating its successful creation are:
(L-R) Noel McMullan, Director, Maxol Limited;
Dr, Dennis Schuetzle, Director Research and Technology, Ford Asia Pacific Operations;
Max McMullan, Director, Maxol Limited
and
Eddie Nolan, Chairman and Managing Director, Henry Ford & Son Ltd.
http://www.maxol.ie/news/dec99.pdf
Agora's marketing tactics bring success, accusations
Publisher: Accused of selling false insider information, Agora Inc. says the SEC is retaliating for a lawsuit.
By Paul Adams
Sun Staff
Originally published April 19, 2003
Baltimore publishing company Agora Inc. isn't in the business of subtlety.
The 25-year-old firm markets its 50 financial, travel and health newsletters with bombastic pitches that promise subscribers advice that will lead to riches and better living, or your money back. Guaranteed.
It's a hard sell designed to grab attention in a market crowded with big-name market gurus and forecasters, and it works. Agora's success has paid for founder and President William Bonner's chateau in France, and placed him and a few partners among the top five newsletter publishers in the United States.
"I would say what makes [Bonner] tick is creating and publishing ideas," said Myles Norin, chief executive of Agora's U.S. operations, which account for 60 percent to 70 percent of its sales. "It's not just chasing profits."
But the Securities and Exchange Commission says the company's aggressive tactics have pushed the legal envelope. In a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the federal agency claims that Agora defrauded its readers last year by charging $1,000 for false insider information about USEC Inc., a Maryland company that supplies nuclear power plants with enriched uranium.
USEC said it never gave Agora editor Frank Porter Stansberry inside information and is cooperating with the SEC.
The allegation is part of a pattern of behavior at Agora that the SEC says goes too far. It is asking the court to order the company to stop making false statements in its newsletters and return profits of more than $1 million, among other things.
"We feel there is a need for the court to issue an injunction because we believe there is a likelihood they will do this again," said Ken Israel, an SEC attorney familiar with the case.
Agora denies the charges, saying the case is retaliation for a lawsuit the company filed against the SEC last year. Agora attorney Matthew J. Turner also says the complaint contains factual errors and won't hold up in court.
"We always give a 100 percent refund anytime for any of our products," he said. "It's disconcerting when the SEC is pushing for disgorgement [of profits] when we already voluntarily [do that]."
Headquartered in a historic Mount Vernon mansion, Agora is described by people familiar with the company as an entrepreneurial success story. The privately held company won't disclose numbers, but hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to its newsletters and annual sales could easily exceed $75 million, judging by industry estimates and Bonner's past interviews with media. The company says its sales have increased an average of 20 percent annually during the past 10 years.
Agora is best known locally for renovating a handful of rowhouse mansions in the Mount Vernon area, creating a business campus filled with original oil paintings, polished woodwork and leaded glass windows. The company contributes generously to community clubs, helping to revitalize the city's once-beleaguered Mid-Town Belvedere area.
'They're always there'
"They encourage their people to get involved," said Lisa Keir, executive director of the Mount Vernon Cultural District. "They're always there with a 'yes' when you need something for Mount Vernon."
Bonner's career has been anything but traditional. The Annapolis native studied at the University of Maryland and the Sorbonne before flirting with a career in law. Looking for a job after college in the late 1970s, he linked up with a childhood friend, James Davidson, to form the National Taxpayers Union in Washington. It was during that time that Bonner discovered his knack for direct marketing.
"I discovered the world of direct-response advertising," Bonner told The Sun in a 1994 interview about his growing business. "That you could ask people for money in the mail and they'd send you some."
After several failed ventures, Bonner found success in 1979 with International Living, a newsletter filled with advice about overseas travel and real estate investing. Among other things, the newsletter achieved notoriety by ranking the best places in the world to live. Bonner marketed through direct mail and produced the newsletter with his wife, Elizabeth.
A few years later, Bonner, Davidson and Davidson's former college roommate, Mark Hulbert, started The Hulbert Financial Digest. That newsletter, which Agora has since sold, was sought for its ratings of other financial newsletters. That led to a major foray into investment newsletters, which make up a significant portion of Agora's portfolio today. Subscribers to the company's newsletters pay $39 to $99 for a subscription.
The company also owns the titles to more than 20 books, sells travel tours and investing seminars and owns about 3,000 acres in Nicaragua that it markets to members in one of its many franchises.
In 1994, it went on a buying spree that included the purchase of Pickering & Chatto, an English publisher of academic titles. Bonner, who wasn't available for an interview, spends most of his time in France, but remains in regular contact with the Baltimore operations, which have about 175 employees.
Agora, which employs about 300 worldwide, doesn't downplay its aggressive marketing tactics or its contrarian views on investing, health care or other topics covered in its newsletters.
'Outside the fold'
Its target market is an audience that doesn't want to be spoon-fed advice by brokers or the traditional financial press. Its editors tend to be former financial advisers or brokers who got fed up with Wall Street and wanted to give unfettered advice, company officials said.
"[Our subscribers] don't want to just get their information from the mainstream press," said Norin, the Baltimore chief executive. "They want ideas that came from outside the fold, and that's what they get."
The company markets through direct mail and e-mail, which by its nature requires an edge in order to persuade people to keep reading instead of tossing it into the trash. The investment report targeted by the SEC was marketed through an e-mail with a heading that read: "DOUBLE YOUR MONEY ON MAY 22ND ON THIS SUPER INSIDER TIP." The SEC alleges that the report was filled with "baseless speculation" and "lies."
But the company says it backs up its statements with facts and a proven track record. When put into context, its marketing statements aren't sensational, Norin said.
How the boss sees it
"The sensationalism, if there is any in our marketing, should be backed up by actual events," Norin said. "When we quote our subscribers as saying, 'This was the best thing I ever did in my life by getting hooked up with this publication,' that's real. There's a name behind it, there's a file in our records."
Giving advice that runs contrary to popular opinion is part of the company's niche.
"Part of our philosophy is almost to say, 'au contraire,'" Norin said. "What's another way of viewing this?"
"To me, that's what stands out about Agora," said Walter Pearce, publisher for KCI Communications, an investment newsletter publisher in McLean, Va. "They really specialize in marketing. As [Bonner] says, they're often wrong about their investment forecasts, but they're just really giving a voice to opinions outside of the mainstream."
Pearce said Agora has a reputation for being a little further outside the mainstream than most. But he says sensational marketing pitches are just part of getting a reader's attention so that he reads on.
"Firms like Agora get a bad rap," he said. "If you're The Wall Street Journal, you're a big dog. Big dogs don't have to bark to get noticed. Little firms, to get noticed, have to do some barking."
Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun
SEC'S AGORA-PHOBIA By CHRISTOPHER BYRON
April 21, 2003 --
AN interesting news release crossed my desk the other day. It was from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and it announced that a fraud suit had been filed by the SEC in Maryland against an Internet newsletter publisher named Agora Inc.
The charge: Selling fake inside information, in the form of "reports" Agora offered to its newsletter subscribers at $1,000 per report, netting something in excess of $1 million on one such report alone.
Plenty of people are doubtless going to rail at the SEC's action in this matter as an infringement of free speech and all that sort of thing. And, to be sure, it's never a good idea to look the other way when the government attempts to regulate what the press, all the way down to the most obscure newsletters, can and cannot report.
But this whole business of Internet tout sheets has reached such alarming proportions, with so many stock promoters now using them anonymously and illegally to hype the shares of worthless companies, that something simply had to be done. The SEC action signals a determination to remind the market that, under the law, stock touts and promoters must have a reasonable basis for making their claims.
IT'S about time, too. Thanks to the Internet, the use of fraudulent and deceptive newsletter promotions to pump up worthless stocks has spread like the SARS virus.
In this racket, promoters make outlandish and outrageous claims to give a temporary boost to the price of some trash stock in the pink sheets or on the OTC Bulletin Board. Typically, the insiders dump their shares thereafter, the price collapses, and the poor schnooks who bought into the stock on the hyped claims in the newsletters are left holding the bag.
According to the SEC, Agora Inc. ran a variation on this basic pump-and-dump scheme. As charged in the complaint, the fact that the price of a particular stock may have gotten a boost from Agora's hype was almost a side issue to the newsletter publisher's real objective.
What Agora was really after, according to the SEC, was to peddle ultra-expensive company "reports" to the public by claiming the reports contained secret, inside information about the company and its business prospects. In reality, says the SEC, the information in the reports was little more than "baseless speculation and outright lies" to separate suckers from their money.
To that end, the complaint charges that on May 14, 2002, at least 15 of Agora's newsletters distributed e-mails claiming analysts at an Agora Inc. subsidiary called PirateInvestor.com had developed a top executive source at a New York Stock Exchange-listed company who had provided bombshell information that was going to make the company's stock price double on May 22.
TO learn the name of the company, all a reader had to do was hand over $1,000 for a report containing the details. The report buyers received identified the company as USEC Inc. - a nuclear fuel processing firm that supposedly stood to benefit from an impending deal with Russia. According to the report, authored by one "Jay Daniels," the deal was due to be approved by the Bush and Putin governments and announced on May 22.
What the report did not say was that the name of its analyst-author, "Jay Daniels," was actually just a pseudonym for the editor of the PirateInvestor.com newsletter: Frank Porter Stansberry.
Nor did the report disclose that the so-called top insider executive at USEC was actually just the company's in-house investor relations man, Steven Wingfield - who told the SEC he never made any such statements as Stansberry was attributing to him as USEC's anonymous top insider executive.
In any event, the promotion was sufficiently convincing that, according to the SEC, Agora Inc. sold more than $1 million worth of the reports to more than 1,000 actual buyers.
What's more, trading volume in USEC's shares jumped more than 10-fold in the week that followed the promotional hype of May 14, lifting the price of the stock 27 percent to $9.98 per share.
Not surprisingly, May 22 came and went with no announcement, and the stock began to slide. A month later, in June 2002, a deal with Russia was indeed announced, but the market didn't react one way or another and the stock continued to slide. As of Friday, USEC was selling for $5.40 per share - not much more than half its hyped high of 11 months earlier.
Whether or not the Agora Inc. bunch were intentionally lying in their USEC promotion, there can be no denying that extreme exaggeration and wild-eyed over-statements were plastered all over it and, under the law, that can be just as bad as outright lying. One needs to have a reasonable basis for any prediction about stock price behavior, and when the prediction is for a stock to double in price on a single day, you need to have a lot more than the claim of an anonymous, puffed-up source.
YET preposterously exaggerated claims and predictions are the stock in trade of many stock-tout newsletters, particularly in the penny stock arena, and Agora Inc. is no exception. The SEC complaint points out that Agora Inc. newsletters routinely lure in subscribers by making preposterous promises and predictions. Example: "Almost Unbelievable Profits - 4.5 Times Your Money in 48 Hours."
One of the most colorful promoters in that regard is an Agora Inc. newsletter editor named James Dale Davidson. Though he is mentioned in the SEC action, he is not accused of any wrongdoing and is cited simply as an example of an Agora Inc. promoter with undisclosed ties to the stocks he promotes.
Davidson insisted strenuously last week that any ties he may have to the stocks recommended in his newsletters are all fully and properly disclosed.
BE that as it may, Davidson is no shrinking violet when it comes to bombastic and extreme predictions. In 1991 he and a former editor of the Times of London, Lord William Rees-Mogg, co-wrote "The Great Reckoning," a book in which they predicted financial and political calamity for the entire world in the 1990s.
According to the authors, there would be global Depression accompanied by a collapse in real estate. In Russia, a Slavic dictator would seize power in the face of mass starvation. In the West, the money center banks would collapse, oil prices would plunge to unprecedented lows, and there would be a mass exodus from big urban centers, especially from New York.
Davidson has since turned his talents as a seer to the stock market, where he has been aggressively hyping a biotech stock called GeneMax Corp., which trades on the OTC Bulletin Board.
In the summer of 2002, Davidson declared in one of his newsletter columns that GeneMax possessed a "breathtaking gene therapy" that offers "incredible hope for cancer patients" and an "absolutely stunning" opportunity for investors.
In fact, GeneMax's total gross revenues since its founding in 1999 amount to less than $27,000, and any payoff from its alleged "breathtaking gene therapy" certainly lies years in the future, if at all.
The stock market agrees, and has hammered down GeneMax's price from $5-plus a year ago to a current price of $1.78. Many of Davidson's other predictions, equally strident and self-confident, have proved equally disappointing.
Now the SEC seems ready to join the issue with all these people and their soapboxes head on: Just how loudly can you shout "Buy this stock!" before the regulators cry foul? The SEC's answer: As loud as you want, if you've got a reasonable basis for your claims.
* Please send e-mail to: cbyron@nypost.com
The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: Historically, small caps outperform larger companies...but it was not so during the bubble years. Jim Davidson argues small caps will make a resurgence once a major flaw in tracking of stock deliveries is rectified.
THE LAW OF ACCELERATING RETURNS
by James Davidson
More than 20 years ago, in 1981 to be exact, a graduate student produced an important research paper comparing the returns on stock investment based on market size from 1926 through 1969. Much to everyone's surprise, he proved that large-cap stocks - the ones that everyone knows about, such as IBM and GE - significantly underperformed smaller companies that most people have never heard of. He showed that small-cap stocks had risen at a compound rate of return of 12.1%, as compared to 9.8% for large- cap stocks.
The premium performance of small caps resulted in a huge difference in wealth accumulation in the long run. Portfolio theorists were fascinated by the findings and immediately began to seek explanations for the divergence in returns. A few simple explanations seemed to account for most of the difference.
The first explanation suggests that smaller companies can be more effective than larger ones in evading competition. Smaller companies can serve "niche" markets, where they may face less competition and consequently can charge higher prices. Higher prices then lead to higher earnings, and thus a higher stock price. For obvious reasons, large companies are seldom found engrossing niche markets, although Microsoft might have been an exception for a time. The idea was that the "niche" strategy provides a sustainable competitive advantage that could explain why some small-cap stocks have outperformed larger companies over time.
Of course, sometimes the "niche" market is also a new market, and among the factors forestalling competition is patent protection. Many fortunes have been made on investments in small-cap companies employing patent protection to develop niche markets.
The second reasonable explanation shows that smaller companies are often in emerging industries, and therefore have the possibility of generating huge earnings growth in the future. The greatest opportunities for wealth creation arise from buying the stock of a small-cap company that has the potential to grow into the next Microsoft or Intel.
For reasons of simple arithmetic, it is implausible that an investment in Microsoft or Intel today could compound as far as investments in companies like GeneMax, a company developing immunotherapy treatments, can if they attain their potential.
At $8 per share, GeneMax has a market cap of about $121 million. If its immunotherapy, which has effectively cured cancer in laboratory animals, works as well in people, it is easy to imagine that GeneMax could be worth $80 per share, or even $800 per share. I don't know what a cure for cancer would be worth. But it could be worth a lot. GeneMax could grow a hundredfold in value. Or maybe a thousandfold. To attain a market cap equivalent to that of Microsoft, GeneMax would have to reach a share price of approximately $15,500 per share based on the current number of shares outstanding.
The Microsofts of the world cannot easily grow a hundredfold in value. At its recent price of $43.77 per share, Microsoft had a market cap of $234.76 billion. While it is unlikely that the GeneMax stock price could appreciate by almost 2,000-fold, it is impossible that such an appreciation could happen again to Microsoft. To be more precise, for Microsoft to compound by 1,960 times, equivalent to the growth that GeneMax would require to become the size of Microsoft now, Microsoft's market cap would have to exceed the GDP of the United States by about 45 times over.
It does not take a divine genius to see that that is unlikely. Put simply, very-large-cap companies cannot grow much faster than the economy as a whole. They certainly cannot duplicate the growth rates that are possible for mini- and small-cap companies.
Given the strong track record of small-cap companies in the half century prior to 1981, it is hardly surprising that a number of new-money management firms were founded in the early '80s with the express purpose of investing in small-cap stocks.
We know small-cap stocks dramatically outperformed large- cap stocks from 1926 to 1969, but over the last 15 years, from 1987 to 2002 - after the small-cap "anomaly" was discovered in 1981 - the returns have not met the expectations that the research supported. In fact, after the experience of the 1990s, most investors probably feel that large caps outperform small caps. Almost everyone has had a personal experience of a small-cap holding that seemed promising but ended up plunging in price.
From 1987 to 2002, the S&P 500 generated a compound annual rate of return of 12.1%, while the smallest capitalization stocks averaged only marginally better - 12.6%. The strong performance of the large-cap S&P relative to small-cap stocks is particularly noteworthy in that there are strong reasons to expect large-cap stocks to underperform ever more significantly.
For example, Ray Kurzweil, a computer scientist at MIT, has recently calculated that we will see a century of technological change in the next 25 years. Kurzweil believes that exponential growth of computational power - up by an astonishing 40 billion times in the past 40 years - has set the stage for ever-accelerating technological change. This exponential growth, which he calls "the law of accelerating returns," proved predictive of many of the technological advances at the end of the last century.
According to Kurzweil, "the rate of technological progress is speeding up, now doubling each decade." Kurzweil believes we will see 20,000 years of technological progress by the end of the 21st century. Rapid-fire technological change of the kind foreseen by Kurzweil turns the logic of 20th century investment strategy upside down. It makes investment in smaller companies with simpler business models, paradoxically more attractive than blue chips like Cisco Systems or conglomerates like Tyco or even General Electric.
No one has ever become wealthy buying shares in companies that were already successful. To make big money, you have to buy when companies look like dogs, and most people doubt that they will ever succeed. John Templeton based his fortune on buying shares of the hundred lowest-price companies he could find listed on stock markets before World War II. Even during the Great Depression, profitable stocks did not trade below earnings.
That said, it is important to understand why the over- performance of small-cap stocks has virtually vanished at a time when technological change should have given an added impetus to smaller companies.
This is a complicated issue. Part of the explanation for the greater performance of large-cap stocks is the buoyancy of the market itself during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1980s, for example, stocks as a group returned 17.57%. During the 1990s, returns were even higher - 18.17%. Only during the 1950s did market returns exceed those in the last two decades of the 20th century.
Obviously, when markets are compounding at a high rate, small-cap companies soon become large-cap companies, and thus escape from the category. Microsoft was a small-cap company when it began trading on March 13, 1986. But after the rapid growth of its business and eight stock splits, it migrated into the "large-cap" category. So paradoxically, part of the reason that small-cap investment appeared to be less successful was precisely because it was so successful.
But there is also a darker subtext to the issue. It involves market manipulation made possible by well- meaning institutional responses to the staggering increase in trading volume on U.S. stock exchanges. Prior to 1829, total stock trading volume in America never reached even 50,000 shares a day. By 1886, daily volume first ballooned to more than one million shares.
Yet even in the heady days of the 1920s, stock ownership remained relatively narrowly based and volume relatively small. Indeed, the last time daily trading volume fell below 1 million shares was in the Eisenhower administration, on Oct. 10, 1953. By 1972, daily trading volume exceeded 15 million shares per day. By the end of last year, volume had exploded to more than 2.5 billion shares per day, more than a 10-fold increase from the early 1990s and thousands of times greater than in the early '50s.
This stupendous explosion of trading volume created a logistical challenge of the first magnitude, namely how to transfer stock certificates to reflect the changes in ownership from sales and purchases by customers. In the infancy of stock trading, when volume was light, it was relatively simple to effect delivery of shares. Messengers scurried around and delivered paper certificates by hand from one investment bank to another. In 1924, the Stock Clearing Corporation was established to facilitate trading. But with trading volume escalating into the billions of shares daily, securities dealers and stock market officials sought a better way to clear their trades. The result was electronic clearing organized through the Depository Trust Company.
The Depository Trust Company is a trust company organized under the banking laws of New York State. It is owned by banks and broker-dealers. It is a custodian of securities that effects "book-entry delivery" in which "transfers of securities within the DTC system are processed by debits and credits to Participants' accounts."
In reviewing a lot of material about the DTC, which I must say is obscure and boring in the extreme, I got the distinct impression that its organizers were more concerned with effecting payment for securities than with the niceties of securities delivery. The DTC says, "DTC does not itself guarantee any funds or securities transfers which its Participants are obligated to make." The DTC is organized on the assumption that broker- dealers, market-makers and clearing agents are all operating in goodwill and need looking at mainly to ascertain that their wire transfers in payment for securities don't go astray.
Where this electronic settlement becomes an issue is when it comes to the shares of mini- and small-cap companies traded on the Pink Sheets, the OTC and the Nasdaq. The rules and conventions that have arisen around electronic settlement effectively permit unscrupulous operators among the many thousands of broker-dealers to counterfeit large quantities of stock, which they can sell for payment.
Given the magnitude of the logistics problem in clearing trades, it is understandable that this could happen. It is much easier to monitor the delivery of payment than it is to authenticate the delivery of shares, especially in an electronic clearing system where every broker-dealer has the de facto capability of counterfeiting securities by simply finding a buyer for them.
Say you want to buy a million shares each of GeneMax and another small cap company. Market maker Doaks has shares of neither. But, either on behalf of some client or on his own account, he sells them to you, crediting your broker's account with 1 million shares of GeneMax and 1 million shares of the other. Your broker now has an electronic credit for those shares, against which he wires funds or nets funds against his credit at DTC to Doaks' Participant account there. Thus are counterfeit shares created and put into circulation.
Doaks or his client has pocketed a lot of money for counterfeiting shares he did not have. And your broker has an electronic credit for those shares at DTC. When another of his clients dies, the executor of his estate orders the liquidation of his account, including 500,000 shares of GeneMax. The credit for those shares originally concocted by Doaks now transfers to the account or accounts of the participating broker-dealers whose clients bought the GeneMax shares from the estate. And so on.
Ostensibly, broker-dealers have the capacity to sell securities they don't own and don't have to borrow - as you would if you were selling short - to facilitate market-making. In theory, the broker-dealers can sell quantities of stock they don't own in order to make an orderly market and prevent the price from spiking on big buy orders. In theory, abuses are limited by the requirement for the market-maker to post capital and limit "naked short sales" of any one issue to 10% of the capital account.
That is the theory. The reality is a bit more ugly. No one is really monitoring the aggregate impact of the counterfeit sales on any given issue. It is simple to confirm that payment has been rendered for a sale. When the cash credit is transferred between participants within DTC or the Fed wire hits, the issue is resolved. But in an electronic, book-entry deposit system, every credit for a share purchased is indistinguishable from an actual share issued by the company treasury, even if it was counterfeited. No one bothers to reconcile the share credits in the DTC system with the authorized, freely trading shares of the company.
Consequently, it is quite common for the effective float of small-cap companies to be inflated significantly by electronic counterfeiting. In some cases, the total effective float has been multiplied many times over.
Hence the sometimes weak performance of mini- and small- cap stocks. Their stock prices plunge because the supply of stock is artificially multiplied by naked short selling, better understood as electronic counterfeiting. Unscrupulous broker-dealers and market makers can effectively drive the prices of stocks into oblivion by selling vast quantities of stock not issued by the company.
Having come to understand this, I see an urgent need to curtail this electronic counterfeiting of the shares of small-cap companies. It not only fraudulently deprives investors in the affected companies of wealth but it is also destructive to the economy. And the news media seldom deign to report on it. Other than a few minor squibs on the news pages of The Wall Street Journal, there has been virtually no coverage of this issue.
Indeed, it is so obscure that you may not even know what I am talking about.
If so, that only underscores the need to shed more light on this predatory practice. I should also say that I am confident that this problem will be rectified. Maintenance of honest and orderly capital markets is tremendously important to the economy of the United States.
Sincerely,
Jim Davidson,
for The Daily Reckoning
P.S. Having made the argument for small caps, and shed light on the potential for small cap manipulation...you should also know that small-cap stocks are more volatile and "riskier" than large-cap stocks. Small-cap companies generally are more heavily indebted relative to their income than their large-cap counterparts, meaning their earnings are more leveraged. Small-cap companies have fewer assets than large-cap companies. Small-cap companies are statistically more likely to go bankrupt than large-cap companies. So portfolio theorists calculate that the extra return you get over time is a result of investors being compensated for bearing more risks. Keep that in mind if one or more of your "high- upside" stocks bites the dust.
Editor's note: James Davidson is a best-selling author and venture capitalist. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Post and USA Today. Mr. Davidson currently sits on the boards of over 20 small-cap companies, and has been invited to join Merrill Lynch's technology advisory board. Davidson's latest research and investment picks can be found in:
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SEC v. Agora, Inc., Pirate Investor, LLC and Frank Porter Stansberry
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
BALTIMORE DIVISION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UNITED STATES SECURITIES
AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,
Plaintiff,
v.
AGORA, INC., PIRATE INVESTOR,
LLC and FRANK PORTER STANSBERRY
Defendants.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Case No. MJG 03 1042
COMPLAINT
Plaintiff Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission"), for its Complaint against Agora, Inc. ("Agora"), Pirate Investor LLC ("Pirate") and Frank Porter Stansberry ("Stansberry") (collectivley referred to as "defendants"), hereby alleges as follows:
INTRODUCTION
1. Defendants engaged in an ongoing scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters published by Agora or its wholly owned subsidiaries such as Pirate. Through various publications, defendants claimed to have inside information about certain public companies. Defendants suggested that its readers could cash in on the inside information and make quick profits. The defendants offered to sell the inside information to newsletter subscribers for a fee of $1,000.
2. Numerous subscribers purchased the defendants "inside tips" and made investment decisions based on that information. The purported inside information was false and, as a result, the subscribers did not realize the profits the defendants promised.
3. The defendants, however, profited handsomely. On information and belief, Agora received in excess of $1 million from the sale of false information to its newsletter subscribers.
STATUTES AND RULES ALLEGED TO HAVE BEEN VIOLATED
4. Defendants Agora, Pirate, and Stansberry have engaged and, unless enjoined, will continue to engage, directly or indirectly, in transactions, acts, practices, and courses of business which constitute violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") [15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b)] and Rule 10b-5 thereunder [17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5].
5. Defendants' conduct occurred in connection with the purchase and sale of securities of public companies, including but not limited to, USEC, Inc. ("USEC").
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
6. The Court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to Section 22(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act") [15 U.S.C. § 77u(a)] and Section 21(d) of the Exchange Act, [15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)].
7. The defendants, directly or indirectly, have made use of the mails, means or instruments of transportation or communication in interstate commerce, or means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce in connection with the transactions, acts, practices and courses of business described in this Complaint.
8. Venue over this action is proper pursuant to Section 22(a) of the Securities Act [15 U.S.C. § 77v(a)] and Section 27 of the Exchange Act [15 U.S.C. §§ 77v(a) and 78aa].
9. Venue lies in the District of Maryland because certain of the transactions, acts, practices and courses of business constituting violations alleged herein occurred within the state of Maryland. In addition, Agora is a Maryland corporation with its principal place of business in Baltimore, Maryland. Pirate Investor LLC is a Maryland limited liability company with its principal place of business in Baltimore, Maryland. Defendant Frank Porter Stansberry is a Maryland resident.
AUTHORITY FOR PROMULGATED RULES CITED HEREIN
10. Plaintiff Commission brings this action pursuant to Sections 20(b) and 20(d) of the Securities Act [15 U.S.C. §§ 77t(b) and 77t(d)] and Sections 21(d) and 21(e) of the Exchange Act [15 U.S.C. §§ 78u(d)(3) and 78u(e)], to restrain and enjoin the defendants from engaging in the transactions, acts, practices and courses of business described herein which violate the federal securities laws, and transactions, acts, practices and courses of business of similar purport and object, to order defendants to disgorge all ill-gotten gains received during the period of violative conduct, and to impose civil money penalties pursuant to Section 20(d) of the Securities Act and Section 21(d)(3) of the Exchange Act against defendants.
11. Pursuant to authority conferred upon the Commission by Sections 10(b) and 23(a) of the Exchange Act [15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b) and 78w(a)], the Commission promulgated Rule 10b-5 [17 C.F.R. §§ 240.10b-5]. Rule 10b-5 was in effect at the time of the transactions and events alleged in the Complaint and remains in effect.
DEFENDANTS
12. Agora, Inc. is a Maryland corporation based in Baltimore. Agora publishes books, magazines, newsletters and operates at least 15 financial web sites in the United States and Europe. Agora's publications include The Cutting Edge, Penny Stock Advisory, The Red Zone, Taipan, Rogue Trader, The Flying V Lockup Trader, CSX Trader, Fleet Street Letter, Options Hotline, Outstanding Investments, Richebacher Letter, Daily Reckoning Investment Advisory, Carpathia Letter, Strategic Opportunities, Jim Davidson's Vantage Point Investing, and the Contrarian Speculator. Agora publications have well over 21,500 paid subscribers.
13. Pirate Investor, LLC, is a Maryland Limited Liability Company that runs a financial advisory web site and newsletter, PirateInvestor.com. Pirate is wholly owned by Agora. Defendant Frank Porter Stansberry is the editor of PriateInvestor.com.
14. Frank Porter Stansberry, resides in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the editor of two of Agora's Internet financial newsletters: Porter Stansberry's Investment Advisory and PirateInvestor.com. Stansberry's compensation is based in part, on a percentage of the revenues realized by those on-line publications.
THE FRAUDULENT SCHEME
Marketing the False Inside Information
15. Agora's newsletters, including PirateInvestor.com, claim to be "a service featuring independent, original and thoughtful research into the process of wealth creation."
16. Instead, the newsletters contain nothing more than baseless speculation and outright lies, fabricated to induce investors to pay Agora (or its subsidiaries) for subscriptions or purported inside information.
17. The subscribers paid Agora for the alleged insider information only to later discover that the inside information was false.
18. On or about May 14, 2002, at least 15 of Agora's Internet newsletters disseminated an e-mail, written by Stansberry promising quick profits based on inside information. The heading on the e-mail stated: "DOUBLE YOUR MONEY ON MAY 22ND ON THIS SUPER INSIDER TIP." A true and correct copy of the May 14, 2002, e-mail is attached hereto as Exhibit A.
19. The e-mail claimed analysts at PirateInvestor.com had come into possession of certain details about the pending approval of a major international agreement that "will create more than $2.5 billion in profits for one small company." The e-mail identified the issuer as a company that was involved in the nuclear energy field and would benefit from the arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia.
20. Stansberry's May 14, 2002, e-mail maintained investors would "make a fortune" because PirateInvestor.com had a "senior executive inside the company" as a source for its inside information. PirateInvestor.com claimed this executive was "definitely in a position to know the intimate deals of this agreement" and when it would be approved. Therefore, the e-mail announced that PirateInvestor.com was in a position to "tell you EXACTLY WHEN the deal will be finalized and announced to the public."
21. The e-mail encouraged recipients to stake their entire investment portfolios on this unnamed company and suggested investors would be able to double their "investment dollar in a single day." Finally, the e-mail stated PirateInvestor.com "can even tell you exactly which day to buy (May 21st) and which day to sell (May 23rd). There is nothing else you have to do."
22. The e-mail did not give the name of the company but indicated it was listed on the NYSE and offered to sell a full report including the name of the company to subscribers for $1,000.
The USEC Report Contains False Information.
23. Once the reader purchased the tip for $1,000, the reader received a report that identified USEC as the company with the impending contract approval ("USEC report"). A true and correct copy of the USEC Report is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
24. Agora's web site attributed the May 14, 2002 e-mail and the USEC report to Jay McDaniels. Jay McDaniels is a pseudonym for Stansberry.
25. The USEC report claimed USEC and Tenex, a Russian governmental agent corporation, had reached an agreement for Tenex to sell dismantled nuclear warheads to USEC at a reduced rate under a pricing agreement.
26. The USEC report indicated that both the U.S. and Russian governments were required to approve the pricing agreement before it became effective. The USEC report claims that, based on information from a company insider, the pricing "agreement will be approved just prior to the upcoming Bush-Putin Summit." Referring again to the pricing agreement, the USEC report states that "[a]ll it needs are the politicians to sign off on the deal" and "according to my source, that will happen-finally-on May 22nd."
27. Stansberry eventually identified Steven A. Wingfield as the insider who purportedly provided the inside information regarding the May 22nd signing date of the arms reduction treaty between U.S. and Russia. Steven A. Wingfield is USEC's Director of Investor Relations.
28. Stansberry claimed Wingfield told him the U.S. and Russian governments would approve the agreement between USEC and Tenex on May 22, 2002, the day before the start of the Bush-Putin Summit. Wingfield made no such statement to Stansberry.
29. Wingfield told Stansberry the same thing he told all analysts who called the investor relations department at USEC. Stansberry asked Wingfield about the pending approval of the USEC-Tenex contract by the U.S. and Russian governments. Wingfield responded to Stansberry, as he did to all analysts, by saying USEC "expected it would be approved in the near future."
30. Wingfield did not tell Stansberry, directly or indirectly, that the pricing agreement with Tenex would be approved by any governmental entity on May 22, 2002. No one at USEC knew when or if the pricing agreement would be approved.
31. Stansberry had no basis whatsoever for the claim in the USEC Report that the approval of the USEC-Tennex contract would occur on May 22, 2002.
32. The pricing agreement between USEC and Tennex was approved on June 19, 2002. On that date the Department of State and USEC separately announced approval of the pricing agreement by both the U.S. and Russian governments.
Market Activity in Response to Agora's False Information
33. From January 2, 2002, through May 13, 2002, trading volume in USEC common stock averaged approximately 189,000 shares a day at prices ranging from $5.78 to $7.37 a share.
34. From May 14 through May 23 volume averaged 3,340,138 shares a day with closing prices ranging from $7.85 a share on May 14 to a high of $9.98 a share on May 20. There was also a significant increase in the volume of options trading in USEC stock during this period.
35. On May 22, USEC failed to make the announcement promised by the Agora e-mails and the USEC report and that day the price of USEC stock fell from $9.54 to $8.20 a share, a drop of nearly 15%.
Agora's On-going Efforts to Disseminate False Information to the Investing Public
36. Agora promoted other securities in its newsletters. Even after Agora became aware of the Commission's investigation, its newsletters have continued to publish e-mails promoting numerous securities accompanied by fantastic claims of quick profits or inside information.
37. For example, Agora publications have touted stocks that it claims will double or triple in value over the next year. Other Agora publications claim to provide information that allows an investor to "turn $10,000 into $114,280 by April 18, 2003."
38. Agora continues to promise its subscribers, "Almost Unbelievable Profits - 4.5 Times Your Money in 48 Hours."
39. As recently as the first week in April 2003, Agora published articles making similar claims of exorbitant profits. In each instance, recipients of the e-mails are offered "free" copies of the headlined reports if they subscribe to one of the various Agora newsletters at a cost of from $69 to $1250 a year. The money-making investments featured in the reports are typically microcap issuers with cures for cancer or AIDS or a technological breakthrough. Some of the tips are characterized as being based on "secret" or "inside" information.
40. In some instances, the individual writing the reports Agora provides to its subscribers has an undisclosed relationship to the company being promoted.
41. For example, James Dale Davidson is the editor of Agora's Vantage Point Investment Advisory, a financial newsletter with a worldwide circulation. In December 2002 and January 2003, Agora distributed e-mails written by Davidson to its subscriber base. These e-mails promote several unnamed microcap issuers and offer to provide reports naming these issuers if the recipient of the e-mail paid $149 to subscribe to the Vantage Point newsletter.
42. Among the issuers promoted in this manner have been GeneMax Corp. and Endovasc Ltd., Inc. Davidson is an officer, director and, indirectly, a substantial shareholder of these two issuers. Neither the soliciting e-mail nor the subsequent company report discloses Davidson's relationship to the companies.
FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF
FRAUD IN CONNECTION WITH THE PURCHASE
OR SALE OF SECURITIES
Violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. §78j(b),
And Rule 10b-5 thereunder, 17 C.F.R. § 10b-5
43. The Commission repeats and realleges each and every allegation contained in paragraphs 1 through 42, as if fully set forth herein.
44. Defendants, by engaging in the conduct described above, directly or indirectly, in connection with the purchase or sale of securities, by the use of means or instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or of the mails, or of a facility of a national securities exchange, with scienter:
employed devices, schemes or artifices to defraud;
made untrue statements of material fact or omitted to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading; or
engaged in acts, practices or courses of business which operated or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon other persons;
in violation of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder.
45. By reason of the foregoing, defendants violated, and unless restrained and enjoined will continue to violate, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b), and Rule 10b-5, 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, plaintiff Commission respectfully requests that this Court:
I.
Issue findings of fact and conclusions of law that Defendants committed the violations alleged herein.
II.
Issue an Order Issue in a form consistent with Rule 65(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, permanently enjoining defendants Agora, Pirate and Stansberry, and their officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and accountants, and those persons in active concert or participation with any of them, who receive actual notice of the order by personal service or otherwise, and each of them, from engaging in the transactions, acts, practices and courses of business described herein, and from engaging in conduct of similar purport and object in violation of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder.
III.
Enter an order that defendants Agora, Stansberry and Pirate, provide an accounting and disgorge their ill-gotten gains from the illegal conduct alleged in this Complaint and to pay prejudgment interest thereon.
IV.
Enter an Order that Defendants Agora, Stansberry and Pirate pay civil penalties pursuant to Section 20(d) of the Securities Act, 15 U.S.C. § 77t(d), and Section 21(d) of the Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d), for the violations alleged herein.
V.
Retain jurisdiction of this action in accordance with the principles of equity and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in order to implement and carry out the terms of all orders and decrees that may be entered, or to entertain any suitable application or motion for additional relief within the jurisdiction of this Court.
DATED: April 9, 2003 Respectfully submitted
/s/ Karen L.Martinez___
KAREN L. MARTINEZ
THOMAS M. MELTO
BRENT R. BAKER
Securities and Exchange Commission
50 South Main Street, Suite 500
Salt Lake City, Utah 84144
(801) 524-5796 (801) 524-3558 (fax)
Attorneys for the Plaintiff
Securities and Exhange Commission
Modified: 04/15/2003
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18090.htm
IN THE MONEY: SEC Files Complaint Against Publisher Agora
By Carol S. Remond
15 April 2003
12:42
Dow Jones News Service A Dow Jones Newswires Column
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a
complaint against Agora Inc., Pirate Investor LLC and Pirate's manager Frank
Porter Stansberry.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
last week, alleges that Agora and Pirate engaged in a scheme to defraud
investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters
published by Agora or its wholly owned subsidiaries, including Pirate.
According to the SEC complaint, Agora and Pirate last May offered to sell
inside information to newsletter subscribers for a fee of $1,000.
"The purported inside information was false and, as a result, the
subscribers did not realize the profits the defendants promised," the SEC said in its complaint.
Although newsletter subscribers did not make out well on Agora's purported"inside tip", the newsletter publisher profited handsomely, the SEC said.
"On information and belief, Agora received in excess of $1 million from the
sale of false information to its newsletter subscribers," the Commission
said in its complaint.
Agora is a Baltimore-based newsletter group founded by James Dale Davidson.
Agora, Pirate and Stansberry filed a preemptive lawsuit against the SEC last
September in the District court of Maryland, alleging that a then-ongoing
SEC investigation into Pirate Investor was in violation of the publisher's
First Amendment rights. Agora, Pirate and Stansberry asked the court to
block the SEC from proceeding with its investigation and sought, as
publishers and writers, to be exempt from anti-fraud provisions contained in
section 10(b) of the 1934 SEC act.
A judge has yet to rule on an SEC motion to dismiss the Agora suit against
the commission.
But the SEC isn't wasting any time and is now seeking to restrain Agora and
Pirate from engaging in conducts and transactions "which violate the federal
securities laws." The SEC is also seeking to have Agora, Pirate and
Stansberry disgorge all ill-gotten gains and is looking to impose civil
monetary penalties on the three defendants.
The SEC began its investigation into Agora and Pirate after Pirate wrote
about a small company called USEC Inc. (USU), a Maryland-based supplier of
low-grade enriched uranium to commercial nuclear plants.
Court documents show that the SEC investigation started after Agora
disseminated a May 14, 2002 e-mail to subscribers. The heading of the e-mail
read: "Double your money on May 22 on this super insider tip." The e-mail
offered to sell, for $1,000 per investor, inside information obtained from a
senior executive of an unnamed company concerning a major agreement to be
announced by USEC on May 22, 2002, according to court documents obtained by
Dow Jones Newswires.
"After the dissemination of this e-mail and before the promised USEC
announcement, the price of USEC common shares and its trading volume rose
substantially. After May 22, 2002 passed and USEC never made the
announcement promised by the PirateInvestor.com e-mail, the price of USEC
stock fell substantially," the SEC said in a court document.
The SEC said in its complaint against Agora and Pirate that the defendants'
"conduct occurred in connection with the purchase and sale of securities of
public companies, including but not limited to, USEC Inc."
According to the complaint, while Agora's newsletters promise original and
independent research, "they contain nothing more than baseless speculation
and outright lies, fabricated to induce investors to pay Agora (or its
subsidiaries) for subscriptions or purported inside information."
The SEC said in its complaint that Agora continued to engage in "on-going
efforts to disseminate false information to the investing public" even after
the publisher became aware of the Commission's investigation.
Among companies promoted by Agora are GeneMax Corp. (GMXX) and Endovasc Ltd.
Inc. (EVSC), two companies that have been the subject of previous "In The
Money" columns.
The SEC complaint alleges that Davidson, the Agora founder and editor of
Agora's Vantage Point Investment Advisory, promoted GeneMax and Endovasc in
his newsletter without disclosing his relationships to the two companies.
Davidson is an officer, director and, indirectly, a substantial shareholder
of both GeneMax and Endovasc, the complaint said.
In a written statement, Matthew Turner, general counsel for Agora, said "the
SEC is far outside (its) jurisdictional boundaries." He added that none of
the defendants named in the SEC complaint ever purchased or sold the
recommended securities. Regarding the SEC's comment that Agora's newsletters
contained nothing more than lies, Turner said that Agora has been "in
business for over 25 years and the vast majority of its customers seem
pretty content. The market speaks for itself."
(On Wall Street, when something is "In The Money" that means it has value.
This column, published periodically, looks at the value of companies and
their securities and explores unusual trading strategies.)
-By Carol S. Remond; Dow Jones Newswires; 201 938 2074;
carol.remond@dowjones.com
By: pkool
15 Apr 2003, 04:07 PM EDT Msg. 29665 of 29724
Would someone please answer a serious question?
What is going on with this company?
I got a glossy brochure in the mail last week which was touting this company to the skies, comparing it to Microsoft, etc., etc. So yesterday I started watching it and the bottom falls out. I'd be interested in a rational synopsis, good or bad, from someone who is neither bashing nor hyping. If such a post already exists, please point me to it. TIA
Gary
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- No Position)
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=GMXX&read=29665
By: pkool
15 Apr 2003, 04:35 PM EDT Msg. 29680 of 29724
Thanks to all who replied-
The 16-page brochure is from an outfit called "The Intrepid Investor" which is published by Kyle Hodgens. They show a Delray Beach, Florida return address, but the first-class postage was paid in Blaine, Washington. I have no idea where they got my address, because I do not subscribe to any stock advisory services.
About 12 of the pages are devoted exclusively to GeneMax. They cover the technology, reviews by other stock letters, brief bios of the BOD, and an article by one of the directors (Davidson) complaining about naked short selling.
Thanks again for the responses.
Gary
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=GMXX&read=29680