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I don't know. For one thing, it'd mean that "Sterling" wasn't quite who he claimed to be. For the rest, if--and there certainly isn't any proof of this--he works for a company that's provided financing for CMKX, it'd be good to know the terms of the financing agreement.
Maybe someone should ask him about all this.
Why do they have to do an "audit"? Doesn't Urbie know how much stock he's issued?
it means we will finally have share structure info as soon as audit is done.
By the way...
Hmmmm somebody told me that Institutional buying wasn't no good but I think I will stick to stervc...
Does anyone know if "stervc" stands for "Sterling Venture Capital"? There actually is a Sterling Venture Capital located in NYC, but "our" Sterling says he's from Texas.
Yes...
Some of these Institutions could have struck deals with Urban to provide previous funding with the opportunity to take a huge position before the major PR is released to initiate the first major run.
...could be. But that's not necessarily a Good Thing:
PIPE DEALS SMOKING
By CHRISTOPHER BYRON
June 1, 2004 -- IT didn't get much attention in the press, but in a Tampa, Fla., courtroom last week, the Mafia's much-chronicled rampage through the penny-stock market a decade ago officially came to an end, with sentences finally handed down for the four top remaining insiders in the case.
So is the so-called "microcap" end of the stock market any safer a place to put your money now that the bell has finally tolled for men like New Jersey crime under-boss Philip Abramo and his henchmen? Don't count on it. Just as Henry Kissinger once observed of diplomacy, each solution simply opens the door to the next problem, and on Wall Street, from behind every door wafts the scent of easy money.
This week we follow the beguiling aromas of Wall Street's newest penny-stock ploy - the so-called PIPE deal (for "private investment in public equity"), a kind of new-and-improved version of the so-called Regulation S deals on which Abramo and his crew feasted back in the 1990s.
In "Reg. S" deals, men like Abramo were able to cheat the market by orchestrating penny-stock pump-and-dump schemes while hiding behind the veil of offshore brokerage accounts held by local nominees in places like the Bahamas and the Netherlands Antilles.
In the new version, the hiding goes on in plain sight, via self-styled "micro-" and "small-cap" hedge funds that often function as willing patsies to pump worthless stock onto the market at outrageous prices.
Some on Wall Street say that more than $12 billion has been raised already from PIPE deals of all sorts. One trade group publication, the so-called PIPEs Report, estimates that close to $8 billion of fresh money has flowed into PIPE deals since January alone, with close to $1 billion of it funneled into itty-bitty transactions of $2 million or less - the typical-sized deal for an obscure penny-stock issuer.
In fact, however, no one can really see the full picture for any of this since the whole point of such transactions is to keep them free of regulatory oversight and control - the exact sort of conditions that sooner or later brings on the swindlers.
HEDGE funds are attractive customers for PIPE deals because the law treats such funds as "sophisticated" investors that don't need any help from the SEC in order to decide where to put their money. That apparently applies even when the funds are pouring money into the same sorts of troubled penny-stock companies that outfits like the Abramo crew exploited in their Reg. S swindles of the 1990s.
One such company, American Stock Exchange-listed Magic Lantern Group, Inc., has no working capital, no tangible net worth and no cash flow, and keeps producing quarterly net losses that exceed gross revenues. What's more, nearly half the company's stock is held by the court-appointed receiver of New York's Mob-connected Lancer hedge fund, which was shut down by the SEC following disclosures first published in this newspaper two years ago.
Though the stock is currently trading for 90 cents a share, the company has no obvious market value at all. Yet it was nonetheless able to raise $1.5 million from New York's Laurus family of penny-stock hedge funds.
Why would Laurus invest in such a company? One answer can be found in the deal it got, which boils down to 7.1 million shares of Magic Lantern stock, or 10 percent of the entire company, at less than 26 cents per share - a staggering 71 percent discount from the price that everyday investors had to pay in the public market. As a result, even if Magic Lantern Group's share price falls by 50 percent by the time the Laurus folks decide to bail out, they'll still be able to reap a stunning 80 percent profit on the deal while outside investors get hosed.
Or consider Summus Inc., an OTC bulletin board-traded company with a colorful past. At various times this company has functioned as a plaything for everyone from Vancouver penny-stock promoters to a North Carolina man who began his career peddling horse shampoo as a cure for human baldness.
These days, Summus claims to be in the business of developing "applications and solutions that optimize the consumer wireless experience," which basically involves selling photos of fashion models in bikinis that you can download into a cell phone.
The company's new boss, who's been on the job since February, says business is going great.
But apparently, it's not going quite great enough. During the first three months of this year, cash in the kitty fell by 86 percent, and by the end of March it was down to $300,000. In the process, the company's day-to-day working capital evaporated and the company plunged into insolvency, even as net losses soared by nearly 75 percent while the company's deficit in operating cash flow jumped by nearly 35 percent.
So is Summus a smart investment? At a current price of a mere 18 cents per share, the stock hardly seems to have many fans. But last month, the company was able to raise $2 million in a PIPE deal in which nearly 43 million shares of stock were offered at the equivalent of roughly 4.5 cents per share, or a 75 percent discount from the market price.
Nearly 40 percent of the Summus PIPE went to a penny-stock player named Joseph D. Samberg who runs hedge funds in New York and the Cayman Islands. Now Mr. Samberg is undoubtedly a fine individual, but he has a habit of turning up in deals with men whom you wouldn't want your daughter to bring home to dinner.
In October 1999, Samberg's funds paid roughly $15 million for about 2.5 million shares of a NASDAQ-traded company called Futurelink Corp. Thereafter, the company's stock price surged from $8 to nearly $36 per share, after which it precipitously collapsed in the early months of 2000, settling eventually in the pink sheets at its current price: roughly 1/100th of a cent per share.
THERE is no evidence that Samberg or his fund were knowing participants in what was obviously a well-orchestrated pump-and-dump heist, which wound up lifting an amazing $2.5 billion from the market. But he should have known who he was getting in bed with when he handed over the money.
For one thing, only two months before the deal, the company fired its founder and CEO, a Canadian penny-stock promoter named Cameron Chell who had recently run into problems with Canadian regulators and been banned from the Alberta Stock Exchange.
And not long after Samberg became an investor, the company filed papers with the SEC acknowledging that "persons formerly associated with our business may have engaged in unlawful activities designed to manipulate our stock" - an apparent reference not just to Chell but to others who had been associated with him at the company.
Chell, whose previous business associates have included a confessed Internet stock swindler from Illinois and a Canadian penny-stock promoter now awaiting trial on criminal charges in Miami, was not about to let his ouster from Futurelink slow him down. Two years ago he sold a company he controlled - the aforementioned Magic Lantern Group, Inc. - to a Canadian company that promptly resold it to New York's Mob-connected Lancer hedge fund.
Not every PIPE deal involves companies - and deals - as convoluted and fishy as these, and many of the larger ones are undoubtedly on the up and up. But the smaller and more troubled the issuer of the stock, the fishier and more suspect the transactions become. And just because the Mafia is no longer in the game hardly means the game itself is going to stop.
As Glenn Frey reminds us in "Smuggler's Blues," the lure of easy money has got a very strong appeal. And that is just as true on Wall Street as anywhere else.
Please send e-mail to: cbyron @ nypost .com
http://www .nypost .com /business/25017.htm
It's a dismal story of Urbie and Randy, a pump and dump, a trading halt, a delisting, three name changes, three reverse splits, and a lotta very angry shareholders.
I posted bits and pieces on several boards last night. I'll pull it all into a single post with links tomorrow.
That's by no means the only article out there. He took a real beating from John Emshwiller of the WSJ subsequent to that.
lol, we've never had an answer to that one, have we?
I'm outta here for tonight. I'll leave the regulars to check out Urbie, Randy Studer, Petro Plus, Northern Star, Odaat, Explor Resources, North Sask Ventures, and Durama....
Quite a complicated story...
There was a great one in Fortune back in 1998, but it's not online.
lol, no point suing him. He doesn't have any money.
Yup, it has its ups and downs. But it's nice to see that the CEO of the company Dobry so ardently supported now owes the SEC about $2 million, and is also facing criminal fraud charges brought by the State of Nevada.
Of course, no one ever hacked Dobry's computers, much less made death threats.
lol, yes, it's quite spectacularly trashy.
Why not?
Unlike many on the boards, I don't discuss stocks I own or trade. I don't do pennies, though. Not after my first educational experience back in 1996, with TFRY.
lol, a real classic.
I've been doing this for more than six years, and I'm one of the best. I've never been offered money, and I don't know anyone else who has been.
What? It had about 2000 posts today.
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=CMKX
No one. It's just an odd hobby. No odder than golf, of course.
Sigh. I'm not paid to bash CMKX. Nobody on these boards is paid to bash anything.
I like investigating questionable stocks. And this is a good story.
I never make recommendations. Thought I'd take a look here because I was posting on the RB CMKX boards.
lol, thanks...
Yup. I imagine Faith's new friend and many others in the mining biz are well aware of the Petro Plus mess.
However, you can take as fact Shore Gold knows who CMKX is and they have a lot of claims locked up. Just another verification CMKX actually does have a large number of claims and are known by other players in the area.
Yawn. You need to check your paranoia level.
Maybe it was a pennystock hedge fund. There're quite a few of 'em nowadays.
I don't think I've ever seen an institutional buuyer on a sub-penny stock.
It really amazes me that you continue to pump so shamelessly, Willy. Have you paid your SEC fine yet?
And just where would Urbie lay hands on $20 million?
If UC is as smart as I think he is he could have easily bought up these shares for only 20 million dollars.
What you really should be considering is whether he's dumping into this pump. Of course in the absence of audited financials we can only speculate, but my guess is that the company is cash poor.
I'm afraid my own imagination just ain't this wild:
Imagine this....We have found a plentiful supply of diamonds, we expect to begin mining operations right away, we have decided to take CMKX private with a buyout price of $.50 per share, oh, and by the way,.... our TOTAL outstanding shares are 50 Billion (Buyout cost $25 Billion).
So...suppose they actually do find diamonds in a quantity worth exploiting. Where's the money gonna come from for actual mining operations?
Now...you suggest that at the same time Urbie (NOT "you") decides to take the company private at a buyout price of fifty cents a share. Hello? Where's he gonna get $25 billion? Max out his credit cards?
Many of you seem to have become so accustomed to "thinking" in billions that you've completely lost track of just how big these numbers are. I think also you're making a mistake in imagining there are "only" 50 billion o/s.
If I were you, I'd pray that Urbie doesn't take the company private. Are you aware of how that's usually done, especially with OTCBB and Pink issues? Management just does a gigantic reverse split, reducing the holdings of nearly all shareholders to zero. And yes, that's perfectly legal if you're a Nevada company.
I suggest once again that you familiarize yourselves with the history of Urbie's earlier company, Petro Plus.
They probably don't want to be holding a lotta inventory in a volatile stock overnight.
anyone have any idea why the MMs waiting to near close to open the flood gates for the 100%ers?
Newbie...
We got talking about CMKX, he seemed to be very aware of it. He said that NITE is no longer the biggest MM because they got slapped by the SEC for naked short trading, so their volume has slowed since April 1 (when the new regulations came into effect). He said they were one of the biggest offenders. Also said that he wouldn't be surprised if CMKX was shorted 1 trillion shares!
That's utter nonsense. Don't you think that if "NITE...got slapped by the SEC for naked short trading", that information would be available at the SEC website?
Sheesh.
I posted a similar message earlier, and one person added that a R/S is also a threat to pennystocks, which is true, but for these calculations, I ruled it out because Melvin has repeatedly stated there are no plans for a R/S.
You think this company can support an o/s in excess of 400 billion? That's my guess, of course, but unless the numbers are awful they wouldn't have gagged the TA.
Are you familiar with Urbie's past? Does the name Petro Plus ring any bells? Urbie was the CEO; another officer was Randy Studer. Petro Plus was pumped, dumped, and delisted. Urbie resigned at that time, and Studer took over. He did a reverse split and changed the name to Northen Star. Then he did another reverse split and changed the name to Odaat. Then yet another reverse split and name change to Explor Resources.
But don't worry: Urbie and Randy are still very close buddies. In fact, Randy owns both North Sask Ventures and Durama:
Casavant Mining Kimberlite International Announces Purchase of 25 Mineral Claims and Ground Magnetic Survey Update
Wednesday, 03-Sep-2003 6:40AM PDT
Story from Nv Casavant Mining via BizWire
Copyright 2003 by Business Wire (via ClariNet)
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 2003--Casavant Mining Kimberlite International (OTCBB:CMKM) is pleased to announce the purchase of 25 mineral claims from North Sask Ventures Limited (a private company), approximately 10,912 acres in the Fort a la Corne area. After airborne magnetic surveys were conducted in the Fort a la Corne area, most of these claims were staked by previous claim holders, due to anomalies that were acquired from data taken from the airborne magnetic surveys. Two of the 25 claims are adjacent to known diamond-bearing property operated by Kensington (KRT), Cameco, DeBeers Joint Venture in Fort a la Corne. Claim #S-135017 is south of kimberlite body #152 and claim #S-15016 is north of kimberlite body #168 both which are operated by the joint venture. Claim #S-135018 is adjacent and north of Shore Gold's (SGF) Birch Lake kimberlite. The remaining mineral claims are strategically located and are currently surrounded by numerous other claims held by CMKI and other claim holders in the area.
Durama Enterprises Ltd. which was recently awarded the mining and exploration contract for CMKI have mobilized their crews and are currently working on the first phase of the contract. Durama has obtained and is authorized work permits which were issued by the Saskatchewan Environment approved for these 25 mineral claims and the previously announced 30 priority targets selected by senior project geologist, Dr. Mark Hutchison. These work permits are issued for line cutting and ground geophysics which include magnetic surveys, as well as gravity surveys. Seven targets of the first 55 selected have had ground magnetics completed by Durama on them with a gravity survey follow-up to commence shortly. Results for the first 7 targets are expected later this week or the first of next week. If the gravity survey is confirmed positive, the target will be drill-ready.
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/dp/Bnv-casavant-mining.Rx2u_DS3.html
snicker...look who's back. He claims he's in "southeast Asia".
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=CMKX&read=250718
He's just so.....physical.
snicker, here's an equally probable story:
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=CMKX&read=174747
Amazon's got a few copies, but they cost more than I care to pay. And TPK himself wouldn't give me a break.
I agree. I'm not a fan of censorship. And Mataras is nuts if he thinks what TPK writes here has any larger importance, or any influence. Besides, TPK is entertaining.
Just posted it on the Zoo Board. Let's see how many fall for it.
lol, the Investrend gang just takes its advantage wherever they see it. They're counting on dealing with dumb people who don't know the first thing about the financial markets.
And for the most part, they've judged their audience correctly.
I think you're reading it right...
Ahhhh yes, Saint Sterling of CMKX. I confess I'm entirely unable to understand his posts. And since they're so long and so boring I'm also unable to get to the end of 'em.
If you want to read someone more delusional than AlanC...here he is!
snicker, the True Longs should consider this:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=20175332
"Forever" is my guess.
how long does it take to fix the refresh button...