Looking for the next one ...
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My interest in posting was only because I know some of the fellows involved.
thx for the post
Can I ask a dumb question?
The Ibox says there are about 2 billion outstanding.
Then it says that Chris Bickell has over 3 billion shares and is an insider.
This makes no sense to me.
IMO
Been following your comments.
After a temporary halt of 10 days, do they always come back on the board and beging trading or can the halt be extended indefinitely if the SEC does not like what assistance or info they get?
IMO
I know some of the guys behind Cyberkey.
They were Mormons and BIG into this deal.
Thought they were pretty good guys ... maybe not.
IMO
Going cheap.
Sold to the highest bidder. NOT!!! LOL
I think they were a scam that was and probably still is going on wrt these 3rd world countries.
I think they pay out in 2012 or something silly like that.
If you want I will send you a copy someday. lol
Thanks for the welcome.
imo
hey ..just glad to post ... got out of jail.
Now just have to get unbanned from FCCN.
As to these "bonds", anyone want some I think I have $200 million Indonesian Water Authority bonds sitting in my filing cabinet. Friend of mine almost got arrested trying to present them a few years ago so they gather dust in my office. LOL
IMO
A lot depends on their webcast upcoming at the end of the month.
IF and I say IF they can do what they claim ... that would be something.
IMO
Janice:
you are the logical resource person here now that Cindy is in jail.
IMO
Must be a holder with a big position holding it down.
IMO
Hey Grubmaster, I dealt with Matt who let me out of jail.
Now ... can you unban me from the FCCN board?
I promise to abide by the TOU's.
guy42i
Matt, it is my turn.
You said 1 week to cool off ... it has been 8 days.
Please let me out.
Matt ... you said a week in here to cool off.
It has been a week.
I will abide by the TOU's.
Please release me, let me go .......
So I won our little bet.
Colts won decisively.
Too bad you didnt take me up on my deal.
You wouldnt have to feed me anymore.
Anyway and seriously, can I get the ___ out of here?
My turn yet?
It was a first offence after all.
So Matt, we got a deal?
Indy wins by 6 or more points and I get out of jail???
At halftime Indy is only up by 2.
Pretty good deal.
Think about it. Dont take too long. lol
fuy42i
Hey Matt .... want to bet on the Super Bowl??
I say the Colts by 6.
What say you?
Hey Matt. Went to church, did my penance, please find it in your heart to forgive me in the spirit of Christ.
The courtesy of a response to a paying customer would be good business.
Matt, please respond to one of my posts about leaving jail, please.
Matt: This was my first offense. I will abide my the TOU's. You have my work. Please release me.
guy42i
Hey Cindy. Sorry dont smoke, but maybe we can barter some from Bubba.
I think I would be proud to be your friend. Been following your posts are you are right on target with your DD and logic.
See you in the yard tomorrow?
Shoot some hoops together?
If the FCCn stock price stays flat ... there will be no further dilution because GGI has no incentive to dilute if their price is the same as the market.
So dont pump the stock. Just hold it flat.
GGI wants it to go up during the day (so they can sell) and then down at the close of trading (so that the average worst 5 days price is low for their conversion).
So the pumpers move it up to allow GGI to sell.
and then at the end of the day ... it goes down ... to give a better conversion price.
Anyway ... that is how I see it and its just my opinion.
Doing Business in China
a good article from a Canadian magazine.
How to lose your shirt in China
The economy beckons, but its business climate makes China a killing field for Canadian firms
ANDREA MANDEL CAMPBELL
Ragupathy Madiyalakan can't help chuckling as he recounts his company's disastrous foray into China. If he didn't laugh, he'd probably cry. His Edmonton-based Quest PharmaTech is teetering on the brink, and the newly named executive chairman frankly doesn't know if the small, publicly listed firm will survive the fallout from a seven-year odyssey plagued by bureaucratic dissembling, broken promises and corruption. "We are on the verge of collapse because of the failure we had in China," says Madiyalakan. "It's been a disaster from day one."
Quest has spent the past two years trying to extricate itself from the quagmire, even changing its name and dumping its former management. But it may not be enough. The pharmaceutical firm has lost millions, and its market capitalization, which once hovered in the $60-million to $70-million range, has been slashed to $2.9 million by furious investors. Like so many Canadian comrades-in-arms who wade into China only to be picked off like cannon fodder, Quest was felled by a fatal combination of wide-eyed naïveté and a business environment that has made China into a killing field for Canadian firms.
Just about everybody's been burned in China, from General Motors to South Korea's LG Electronics, but market veterans say Canadians seem to have a particularly hard time grappling with the country's no-holds-barred, get-rich-quick mentality. The list of firms scorched by the ferociously competitive market is long -- from the Royal Bank of Canada and fruit manufacturer Sun-Rype Products, to a string of junior miners -- and might explain why, despite countless Team Canada trade missions, Canadian foreign direct investment into China is limping along at a paltry $1 billion to date, while the rest of the world has poured some US$356 billion into China since 2001.
Canadians aren't exactly seasoned global traders to begin with, preferring to do the bulk of their business with the U.S., if they leave Canada at all. Their cautious, trusting nature is in sharp contrast to Chinese culture, where the word for honest, loashi, is a derogatory term meaning to be gullible or to follow blindly. "You're better off going to Vegas for the weekend," says Jim Sherry, a former federal trade commissioner turned consultant. "You'll lose money just as fast and have more fun." The carnage is so predictable that government bureaucrats and business consultants openly wonder whether Canadian companies are cut out for China. As one trade commissioner, formerly based in China, admitted: "Every joint venture [between a Canadian and Chinese company] that I knew of, they all failed, all except one, and even that ended." Gervais Lavoie, a long-time China hand and a director for the Beijing chapter of the Canada China Business Council, tells Canadian companies flat out not to come. "I tell them China is going to eat you raw, because you are so green they won't have time to cook you," he says with a grin. "Canadians come to get screwed and the Chinese go, 'okay, we'll give you a run for your money.' "
Quest PharmaTech could have used Lavoie's advice, but at the time it seemed like a no-brainer. The company, then known as Altachem Pharma, had just gone public in 1999. It was quickly taken up by the idea of combining its technology with China's cheap labour to manufacture its pellet cores -- translucent glucose spheres used to make drug capsules -- which it could then sell into the massive and fast-growing market. Chinese government officials made it easy, luring the firm with tax breaks and a sprawling 40,000-sq.-foot facility, complete with landscaping and security guards, in one of Shanghai's spanking new industrial parks. But the company's ambitious plans soon began to unravel.
The joint venture was plagued by technological foul-ups almost from the start. Within a year, Altachem's government partners pulled out of the money-losing venture, leaving the Canadians on the hook for the factory's 50-year lease. They decided to go it alone, even though it took three months of paperwork just to transfer money to pay their Chinese workers, and they caught their Chinese general manager running a side business out of the Shanghai facility. They had to hire a Canadian supervisor to keep an eye on the operation, adding to the less quantifiable costs of pervasive bureaucratic corruption. "I don't want to get too much into it," says Madiyalakan darkly, "but the corruption is there."
When it became apparent the venture would never be profitable, Altachem decided to expand into another line of business, only to be blocked by new environmental laws. Cash-strapped, it had no alternative except to sell the facility. But when it came time to find a buyer, the company discovered it didn't have actual title to the land. While Altachem's original partners, a ward within the city of Shanghai, had a contractual obligation to hand over the deed, the move was blocked by higher-ups who claimed it was outside the ward's jurisdiction. Caught between competing factions within the Shanghai government, the company had no choice but to return the property to the city for a paltry $145,000, a fraction of the $2.2 million it paid for the plant. To get the money out of China, it needed 14 approvals from six different government agencies.
And that's not even the whole story. Altachem embarked on a second venture after a Chinese middleman, living in the U.S., convinced the company he could find a Chinese distributor for another of its technologies. The go-between was paid a hefty sum to hook them up with a Chinese cashmere manufacturer that was looking to get into the drug business. The Edmonton firm invested US$3 million to develop a high quality bacterial disinfectant, but after just six months, the impatient Chinese partner walked out of the deal. "They didn't understand biotechnology, they didn't realize it takes time," says Madiyalakan. Unable to find anyone to market or distribute the product, which is more expensive than the cut-rate Chinese market would pay, Altachem shut down the venture in 2005.
All told, Madiyalakan estimates the company lost $6 million, including $3 million in operating expenses and $1 million in foreign exchange and withholding taxes just to move its own money out of the country. "Maybe big companies can do alright in China," he declares, "but it's not a place for small companies."
In the past three decades, China has undergone a dramatic transformation as its creaking Communist economy embraces capitalism. The Middle Kingdom, many agree, has made great strides to embrace Western-style accounting practices and bulk up its judicial system. With the country's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, and much of its business elite Western-educated, "it is possible to do good business and with high ethical standards," says Howard Balloch, Canada's former ambassador to China and president of Beijing-based investment boutique, the Balloch Group.
Yet for many foreigners, the changes are only skin deep. While the country may have donned the exterior trappings of the West, a survival ethos prevails where the ends justify the means, and "lying and cheating are fine as long as you don't get caught," says Sam Goodman, a Canadian living in Beijing. "If I had to define China now, it's appearance over substance. Things appear different but the substance isn't there. Anyone who says the people have changed -- that's just crap. This is still the wild, wild West."
Goodman speaks from experience. The Toronto-born former tree planter and wrestler came to Beijing in the mid '90s to study Mandarin. Learning the language wasn't a problem, but he quickly hit the proverbial Great Wall of China when it came to eating rice and noodles every day. Figuring the only way he could get Western food was if he made it himself, Goodman decided to open a restaurant. He knew it wouldn't be easy, but he relished the challenge. Goodman decided to call his new venture "Beijing Sammies: Where East Eats West." He had no idea just how true that tag line would turn out to be.
A friend had warned Goodman that his Chinese partner in the deli would screw him over within eight months. It only took four. At 4:30 one morning, he awoke to find the partner -- the cousin of a friend -- had taken the business licence and changed the locks. The partner was supposed to handle all the Chinese government red tape while Goodman managed the business. Instead, "he decided to deal with things by getting rid of me," says Goodman, who, together with friends, broke into the café and took everything that wasn't nailed down. The partner relented and a newly independent Goodman reopened for business 10 days later.
But that was just the beginning of his troubles. First, the landlord's go-between took off with his six-month rent deposit. Then, after paying a second time and renovating the place, he was belatedly informed that the street was slated for demolition. He got $28 in compensation. Still, Sammies' sandwiches, salads and fruit smoothies were an instant hit, and in 1999, two years after launching the business, Goodman opened a central kitchen, delivering food throughout downtown Beijing. To finance the $350,000 expansion, Goodman took on a Chinese investor. "That was my second mistake," he says.
The partner kept demanding to be made majority shareholder, but never seemed to cough up any money. It was a "miserable" experience, admits Goodman, but not a unique one. "Every single joint venture I've heard of has been screwed over. Every single one," he says. "They do it because they can, there's no legal recourse, because you're in their sandbox. They don't value what you bring to the table. It's just a completely different way of doing business," Goodman concludes, adding, "The Chinese are the most pragmatic people I've ever met. Don't get me wrong -- there are good and bad people everywhere -- but doing business, oh my goodness, I wouldn't have a full Chinese partner ever again."
Goodman replaced his Chinese investor with a group of expats, and by 2003 Beijing Sammies was humming, with five cafés and a booming corporate catering business. Then SARS hit, stopping the city dead in its tracks. Goodman worked tirelessly through the crisis, but on his return from a much-needed vacation, he discovered several of his employees had quit to start a rival delivery service. That same day, while checking on his café in the city's Silk Alley, he learned the locale lay in the path of the city's notorious wrecking ball; he had a month to vacate. The coup de grâce was a phone call informing him he was being kicked out of another location to make way for a Starbucks. "I was stabbed in the back, kicked in the face and punched in the stomach, all in one day," says Goodman.
The entrepreneur had finally had enough and sold the business, one more victim of the shifting sands and tenuous loyalties that characterize the Chinese market. But like many point out, it's not only the Chinese who take advantage of the amorphous rules and shades of grey. There are plenty of Canadians out to make a quick buck. "The temptation is there and the opportunity is there for anyone," says Robert Kwauk, who heads up the China practice for law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon in Beijing. "The rogues are not just Chinese."
Barry and Stuart Hansen were born in London, Ont., and by all accounts were impressively smooth operators. "They were the two best salesmen I have ever come across in my life," says Pierre Pomerleau, head of the Quebec construction firm Pomerleau Inc. "If they would have been straight and honest, they would have been billionaires." Instead, they used their prodigious talents to pull off one of the most infamous scams in recent Chinese history, bilking international investment banks of millions and fleecing a phalanx of construction companies from Canada to France and Germany that left the Canadian government on the hook for millions.
The brothers were feted during the inaugural Team Canada trade mission in 1994 for their ambitious plans to develop what was eventually touted as a US$500-million exclusive housing development on Shanghai's up-and-coming east side. The Shanghai Links Executive Community was to include a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, yacht club and 800 American-style homes for the employees of multinational corporations living in China. To finance the project, the Hansens, through their Sealand Housing Corp., secured US$50 million from Bankers Trust, Deutsche Bank and HSBC Private Equity Management, among others, in return for a 40 per cent equity stake. They promised to duplicate the model in scores of Third World countries and list the SLEC venture on the New York Stock Exchange.
Things started to smell "fishy" about six months into construction, says Pomerleau, when Barry Hansen tried to cancel the construction contract that Pomerleau shared with France's Bouygues. Suspicious, the firms began investigating and discovered that the expat housing leases the Hansens had purportedly signed with companies such as General Motors and Exxon -- which had been used to get their bank funding -- had all been forged. The construction firms alerted the financial institutions, and the project's account was temporarily frozen, touching off a legal battle spanning nearly a decade and involving half-a-dozen countries.
It would later come to light during court proceedings in Britain that the Hansens had also forged documents to show they'd paid the Shanghai government for rights to develop the 200-hectare plot. In 2001, a British judge found Sealand and the Hansens guilty of fraud, perjury and forgery, dubbing the brothers "unscrupulous traders." But endless appeals by the Hansens delayed proceedings until 2005, when the banks were finally awarded US$60 million in damages. They have yet to see a cent, though they were able to divest themselves in 2006 of the Shanghai Links, which has since been completed by another company.
Pomerleau is clearly chastened by the experience, but at least his losses were backstopped by Export Development Canada, the government export credit agency, which shelled out $5 million in insurance claims to Pomerleau and his subcontractors. As for the Hansens, they are likely no worse for wear, says the Quebec builder. "They're probably on an island somewhere drinking pina coladas out of a coconut," he says.
Gervais Lavoie's story isn't quite as spectacular, but it helps explain why Canadians, despite promising starts, have very little to show for themselves in China. In 1993, Lavoie came up with the idea of selling fruit juice to a growing market of newly wealthy Chinese. He approached Lassonde Industries, the manufacturer of Allen's and Rougement juice brands, to buy a second-hand juice machine, and ended up cobbling together a joint venture in which the Quebec company chipped in the equipment and a Chinese partner supplied an idle cement factory and US$500,000 in seed money. The brand was called Rumeng, which roughly translates as "dreams of women" in Chinese, and its slick, black-labelled bottles of apricot, peach and strawberry nectars sold for US$10 a bottle in high-end restaurants.
Within five years of its 1995 start-up, the hugely popular drink line was ringing in annual sales of more than US$15 million and was the third-largest juice brand in China. As Lavoie tells the story, Lassonde had paid little attention to the faraway operation, happy to let Lavoie and the Chinese run the show -- until it realized that Rumeng, representing just 10 per cent of Lassonde's revenues, was responsible for a whopping 40 per cent of profits. The Quebecers decided to take charge, buying out the Chinese partner in 2000 and replacing local management with a Canadian chief financial officer and a marketing manager from France. Lavoie, with a 15 per cent stake, had no more say in daily operations.
It took just a year for profits to flatline, and by 2003 Rumeng was losing money. Lavoie and the Chinese offered to buy control of the company, but Lassonde refused, says the entrepreneur, who resigned soon after. The Quebecers turned down at least three other buyout offers, including one from China's largest juice company, he adds. Lassonde eventually declared a $13-million loss on the venture and left China. The Chinese partner claims it still owes him $2.3 million. Lassonde declined to comment. "The Chinese thought, 'this is impossible, especially from Canadian people,' " says Lavoie, adding, "A Chinese would never do what Lassonde did to us."
For most Canadians, however, their greatest sin is one of omission. The Chinese market is a jungle of conflicting regulations and nebulous political machinations, and for many a newcomer, much is lost in translation. Yet Canadian companies repeatedly fail to take the most elementary precautions or are so afraid of getting burned they miss out on huge opportunities. And it's not just the small companies -- some of Canada's largest firms are guilty of the same transgressions.
Quebec-based Bombardier does a booming business building trains for China's expanding infrastructure, but its airplanes have largely failed to take off with the country's fast-growing aviation industry. The reason? The manufacturer, fearful its technology might be stolen, deliberated for a year over whether to strike a joint venture with Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corp. to build planes in northern China, according to an individual familiar with the negotiations. Bombardier's archrival, Embraer, came knocking, and within a month inked a deal with Harbin; a year later, the Brazilian-Chinese planes were in the air, snapped up by a phalanx of Chinese airlines.
The Royal Bank of Canada opened its first branch in Beijing last year, marking a cautious return to China almost a decade after the bank was bilked out of tens of millions of dollars. According to veteran China hands, the Royal Bank cut and ran in the late 1990s after agreeing to lend money to what it believed was a subsidiary of the China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co. Ltd., a state-run metal trader. The Canadian bank asked CNMC to guarantee the credit facility, mistakenly believing that, since it was government-owned, the guarantee was equivalent to sovereign risk and therefore backed by the government. The Chinese company obliged, providing a "letter of comfort," which was of little consolation when the loan was drawn down and never repaid. Canada's largest bank should have known better, say those familiar with the case, but more importantly, it should have had enough gumption to stay the course. "So somebody stole money -- you learn your lesson and move on," said one Chinese-Canadian businessman. "It's nothing personal, it's business."
Doing business in China is a bit like the country's chaotic traffic; cars regularly ignore lights and lanes and heedlessly plow through throngs of pedestrians. Yet if you get run over, it's your fault because even if you think you have the right of way you would be stupid not to realize that a car can kill you. In the same way, many Canadian companies have only themselves to blame when they get mowed down because they blindly adhere to traffic signals that bare little resemblance to the reality on the ground. "The way Canadians, particularly, suspend good judgment when dealing with China is absolutely outstanding," says Balloch, the former ambassador. John Gruetzner, a Beijing-based Canadian consultant, agrees. "You can talk about Canadians being screwed in China, but you can also see Canadians screwing themselves for not understanding the market," he says.
Altachem is a case in point. The company imported a $1-million processing machine from Italy that could not be used because it operated using refined sugar from beets when, in China, sugar cane is the standard. It didn't send anybody from Edmonton to oversee the operation, instead relying on a single Chinese manager who was hired because one of the company's Chinese-Canadian employees said he knew someone back in China who spoke English. Altachem trusted government bureaucrats who promised they would give the company title to the factory land without finding out whether it was in their power to do so. Nor did it hedge against the currency exchange or take precautions to make sure it could get its money out of the country. Most fundamentally, it failed to determine whether there was really a market for its product in China. "We were promised all sorts of things and we got carried away and went," says Madiyalakan. "We didn't plan for failure."
To comment, email letters@macleans.ca
Please ban me from the Jailhouse.
I will fully endorse that ban cause it would be only fair and just.
I have apologized repeatedly for my TOU indiscretions and my other board posting.
Can you please ban me from the Jailhouse now and release me from jail?
I promise to go forward and sin no more!!
guy42i
Matt: Have been leaving you messages here in the jailhouse.
I guess they have been for naught as I was supposed to reply to one of your emails. Oops.
Silly me.
Anyway ... been here for three going on four days now.
I diligently promise to uphold and honor the TOU's.
Specifically, I will stay on topic.
I have been a spammer per se. If I repeat information it is because someone else asks a similar question.
In any event... please let this reformed poster out on parole.
lol
guy42i
Ok.. So I have apologized for my misspent posts.
I have promised to diligently respect the TOU's to the very best of my ability.
I do believe I know what got me in here and promise not to every participate in such nefarious posts again.
So .... how about letting me out on parole?
hello Matt: Isn't it my turn to get out of here?
still waiting to hear back from you.
guy
(Background music for Camp Granada please)
Hello Matta, hello Grubba
Here I am in
Camp IHUBBA
Nothing doing
In the jailhouse
being quiet
Like a mouse.
Want to obey
The TOU's
Please let me out
So I can muse
I will promise
To be swell
If you could please
Let me outta this Hell.
Dear Matt; How are you. I am fine.
Actually I am a little disappointed that you never return any of my messages.
The kids ask about you and are missing you.
Please reply at your earliest convenience.
Love,
Guy42i
ps please let me out of here!!!
Hello Matt:
It has been three days now. I think I have fully detoxed lol and am ready for the cold cruel world of online posting again.
I promise to honor the TOU's.
Guy42i
Matt:
I have reread the TOU Refresher and agree to diligently comply by its mandate and purpose.
Please release me from jail and my ban.
Yours truly,
Guy42i
Grubmaster:
You requested that I contact you today.
I have reveiewed the TOU Refresher and promise to abide by its dictates wrt off-topic and spam.
Please let me out of jail.
Guy42i
I am looking for some equity. I am in here because of a PM that someone sent which was a definite lie and they went on to post the complete opposite to pump a stock. You know I am telling the truth.
If I am in here, then there should be a lot more people from FCCN right beside me in here.
Is this really a bona fide message board or is it something else.
I have not spammed.
I have been on-topic with the exception of a few instances, I believe I now know the difference.
Let me out of here, please.
Done some DD.
They have some interesting products.
I heard Rufus and the Easter Bunny were going to do a joing conference call to explain the details behind his coming back to take this stock to the moon!!!
No possible.
Quit pumping this dead duck.
IMO
If you can believe him ... he is a genius financier.
However .... many say the bonds he claims to owned were fraudulent or not theirs at all.
Also ... if you can "mine" trees from the Amazon for billions of dollars ... heck of a deal.
SEC investigation possibly going on.
He and company served by the SEC.
But you make up your mind.
IMO
what guy?
Mr TG is just too good to be true.
I have never seen a more concerned and diligent public defender.
We would all like to see the definitive 14A
It might answer a lot of the dilution questions.
Also the real reason for GGI's 760mm+ shares and the terms on those.
IMO