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The Spider and the Fly
Dr. Singh has no idea what's in store him. He has made the biggest mistake ever and doesn't even know it.
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
I'm not here to dissuade, just to provide additional information that investors in Cataldo/Kessler controlled companies can't find through normal channels.
I expected you'd maintain a positive view mostly because you're not the first to dismiss these facts. Virtually everyone does who inquires about Cataldo companies. A few lucky individuals who stumble into a Cataldo stock are fortunate enough that their short timing coincides with the pump and make a few dollars, but the extreme volatility afterwards always spooks them and they rarely come back. The majority who stick around thinking they will recoup something eventually get burned and cut their losses.
So I do have to wonder though, what in the world makes you think Oxis is the the real deal? The poor KPIs, quant/tech analysis, lack of operations, illiquid market.... all of these are warning signs to stay away at all costs.
I apologize if I seem at all like a jerk, but I have a deep interest in understanding the facets of investor psychology - I work in investment banking business intelligence, and completing my master's in Finance, and preparing for CFA candidacy. So it really does matter to me, both professionally and educationally, to know what possible silver lining you see in Oxis that trumps all the contrary facts? I'm interested to know if it's something new that hasn't already been repeated by previous visitors.
Whats going on, is it's a sham company.
Tony Cataldo and his associates are part of a group of predatory capital lenders, doing business under various different names, who prey upon distressed OTC small caps. You can read all about this not just with OXIS, but GNBP, MTCH, and VOIC - just a few of the companies busted out by Anthony Cataldo.
They lend money at exorbitant interest rates with agreements that allow them to be placed on the Board and hired as salary-drawing executives. The agreements include convertibility clauses that award them a lion's share of A stock that CAN NOT be diluted, and CAN be converted to massive amounts of B shares that can be dumped in the secondary markets, to investors like you or anyone else.
They cease all revenue operations, rack up debt, stop paying expenses, and enforce lockbox financing so that all cash is tied up. The remaining cash is used to pay their 6-figure salaries ($250-300k range for each is normal). More often than not, they never even do work or visit the location. They hire their wives, girlfriends, and children to non-existing positions (ghost employees) and give them decent salaries and vehicle allowances. These ghosts are never expected to work either, and the real employees are usually unaware of the ghosts on payroll.
What little work they do as executives, consists of flying to New York City in 1st class and staying in 5 star hotels, using rented limos to get them around while they visit pension fund managers and hype the company to encourage investment. Meanwhile, the employees who cant even buy office supplies continue working, oblivious that the company they work for has been turned into a debt-generating ATM machine.
In order to maintain the facade of operations to continue financing, they need to keep a minimum of paid operating costs (payroll, expenses), so when threatened with a cease of operations (either because they're about to be evicted or the employees cant get paid), one of them will make a short-term loan back to the company. The note terms are sheer usury, with exorbitant rates and convertibility options to acquire even more stock at huge discounts, often 99% or even greater off current market price.
What money isn't wasted on executive salaries, ghost salaries, and perquisites, is invested into paid analytical reports to portray the company in a positive light, intended to fool investors into thinking the stock is about to take off. The reports are littered with safe harbor statements to ensure that the company is legally protected if accused of misleading.
After the reports come out, Cataldo and his associates prime the pump with cheap B shares, and as the price rises, they convert their own A shares into B shares and dump them on the market. The price eventually falls a few days later as liquidity dries up, and about 4 to 6 weeks later they repeat the process again with the A shares they have remaining.
They make millions doing this, quickly recovering their investment costs and profiting handsomely. They don't stop until they cant cover operating costs anymore, or their A shares run out, or the market liquidity is low because no one is interested in the stock anymore. And then they move on to another company. If you've ever seen "Goodfellas", this scene explains it perfectly:
But now the guy has got to come up with Paulie's money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. You had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place hit by lightning? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Paulie could do anything. Especially run up bills on the joint's credit. Why not? Nobody's gonna pay for it anyway.
As soon as the deliveries are made in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a two hundred dollar case of booze and sell it for a hundred. It doesn't matter. It's all profit.
And, finally, when there's nothing left, when you can't borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out.
You light a match.
If you already own this, my advice is to sell it immediately regardless of loss - it's a sunk cost no matter what - and reinvest elsewhere. The company doesn't exist anywhere but on paper. There are no employees, no revenue, no operations, nothing. If you see price movement, it's from market makers adjusting their inventory to cover purchases made by clueless investors, or gamblers with no impulse control and a high appetite for risk.
Ping: Bloodhound99
Haven't seen any chatter from you after reporting about Cataldo stepping down. Everything OK?
Definitely scenario 2.
GNBP will always be remembered as a failure...from Tony's POV.
So, a manufactured January effect?
GNBP valuation
The last time I valued GNBP was in March 2011, which yielded 0.0061 per share.
With the most recent reported negative equity of $16,618,362 in June 2012 (a deficit) and over 78 million outstanding shares (with no reported revenue ever, no receivables, no inventory, no substantial PPE) the intrinsic value of GNBP is now -0.2122 per share.
This means in order for GNBP to be fairly priced in a secondary market transaction, a buyer would have to be subsidized at 21.22 cents per share.
So if you really want to buy GNBP, you should not pay a market price higher than 4.28 cents per share, which is substantially lower than the current price of 25.5 cents (.2550 - .2122 = .0428).
Since intrinsic value can not be negative and there are no prospects of future revenue, the intrinsic value of GNBP is actually zero per share, which should be the fair market price instead of .255.
Where's Tony's next job going to be?
GNBP is dead and Tony must be looking for a new company. The last few years he seems to prefer riding industry trends that are correlated to well-known Federal bills likely to spur large capital flows (due to massive Federal spending or sweeping regulatory requirements).
I predict his next company will be one of the following, in the same order of likelihood:
1. Medically related (prior experience in med, coupled with expectations of improved healthcare sector performance if Obama can protect the Healthcare act until 2014.
2. Digital security/piracy-related (SOPA, PIPA, & Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Act).
3. Refinancing of personal & student debt (Student Loan Forgiveness Act)
This is probably Tony's worst performer ever.
And by worst performer, I mean for padding his wallet. GNBP has got to be the biggest personal bust for him. He really tried to touch the sky with this one, and the funny part is I think with the right leader and experience, this could have been pulled off and would have popped extremely well.
18 months ago I posted this:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=59842780
Yeah, I just think its poor demand
I dunno what the deal is, but it seems as if there is just no secondary demand for GNBP. I just don't see how they can find a way to help them extend this further without borrowing more funds or dumping more stock. There appears to be little interest in the stock. Tony really should have a found a way to promote this better, with all the names he had backing this, he needed to go balls-to-the-walls on marketing. I can't remember, but isn't there some kind of direct-function connection to Oxis? Can't they use Oxis to extend financing?
OT: @Blood
Have you tried a BitTorrent search? I haven't tried yet.
I don't what torrent experience you have, so I would suggest using the Vuze client - in my opinion, it has the best meta-search feature for easily cross-checking multiple torrent search engines. I also recommend uTorrent.
Sorry for the public reply, but I don't subscribe because I never need extra iHub features. Hit me up if you have any other questions.
Need to check the Level 2 quotes.
It could be intra-dealer trades between MMs.
Or like Blood said, maybe someone with unlimited trades and spare pocket change is just monkeying around, wasting time in the belief they'll create some kind of self-arbitrage.
The L2s aren't being reported so you'll need a subscription to view real-time L2 stream. I think nothing revelatory will come of this.
Oh yeah, it's already dead.
No one wants this dog anymore, not even Tony Cataldo. The humane thing to do is gently put it out of it's misery. But Tony isn't human.
GNBP is a 3-legged mangy mutt covered in ticks and fleas. Got no teeth left, can't even bite even if it wanted to. This mess is being cleaned up by the MMs, there's no point in even trying to forecast L2 activity.
I'm sure Cataldo and Kessler are already schmoozing it up with the marks... umm, I mean public officers... of their next planned takeover.
The PnD that just happened is what's ensuring an extension this time. How long can they keep it up?
It's pointless Blood.
Cancer is ready to go down on this sinking ship. His own cognitive bias has shielded him from the fact that when lightning has already struck sevenfold, that one should get out of the way.
If he wants to stand in a well-charred crater under the only tree on top of a hill in an open field while wearing a tin foil hat as dark storm clouds form overhead, then so be it.
Handelman and the LA Kings
Blood wrote:
Checking here its been about 15 years since Michael was CFO at a profitable company. I am assuming the Kings were profitable.
No. Handelman worked for the LA Kings from '93 to '96. This is the darkest period in Kings' history.
Bruce McNall, the primary owner, defaulted on a $90M loan to BofA in December 1993 and was indicted for fraudulently obtaining loans that same month, to the tune of $236M owed to six banks. He was forced to sell his controlling interest in 1994 and served nearly 5 years in prison.
The Kings never recovered and declared bankruptcy in 1995 and bought out by Anschutz the same year. I don't think it's a coincidence that Handelman left the following year, and I doubt he left on his own free will. They had many financial problems for many years even after the buyout.
McNall was a horrible businessman who used the Kings as an ATM machine (sound familiar?) and Handelman was the one holding the purse open when it all went down.
OT: @Blood - yeah, go ahead
Before or after adjusted gross income?
Altogether the gross marginal tax rate (CA + Fed) would be a little over 45% regardless if 7 mil is AGI or not.
Finally looked at the latest 10Q
Saw the negative RE at $19mil.
Gross insolvency - and they expect this to continue for 4 more years? Lemme rephrase that... they expect the sheeple to believe this can continue for 4 more years?
Congrats GNBP shareholders. Tony Cataldo has yielded you a deficit of nearly $20 million in less than 1 year at the helm.
That's an impressive choir Blood.
How about Steve Kroft, Leslie Stahl, or Morley Safer instead?
Yes, serious allegations indeed.
And as Blood pointed out, I once worked for one of his companies. I had the keys to the castle, could access any files anywhere on the network I pleased - along with my cohorts. I stand by my allegations, because I saw the proof with my own eyes. We found:
Receipts for top hotels in NYC
Receipts for first class airfare
Receipts for limousine travel, rather than taxis
He frequently brought his son with him. He used these trips as a pretext for raising capital, but he really wasn't. They were getaway vacations.
Tony's son was on our payroll - he did not have a listed job title. He was paid an annual salary of $40,000 and granted a monthly vehicle allowance of $750. Bear in mind, our company was located in Orlando FL. Tony's son lived in Los Angeles working as an independent film director. His name is Cory Cataldo. Google him.
Tony was our CEO for exactly 18 months. He did not have an office. Half the time he didn't have a network login or email. Most of the people in our company never recognized him when he came. He only came to our office 3 times, 1 day each.
The first was a few days after becoming CEO in September 2006, to introduce himself. The second time was a shareholder meeting in February 2007 at a hotel down the street from our office. The third time was December 2007 to run damage control, a few days after our founder and CIO quit when it became obvious that they were keeping all the revenue and would do nothing to help the company stay solvent. Tony only did one thing: traveled a few times per year to meet people to convince them to buy stock - that's it. A monkey could have done his job. He didn't understand what we did or how we did it. He knew nothing of how the company operated. For all that, he was paid a salary of $328,000 and received a monthly vehicle allowance of $2,500 on top of his salary.
He was a useless CEO who squandered our resources on himself. Tony Cataldo is nothing more than hired bag man for predatory lenders. And we didn't even come to these lenders. We inherited them, unfortunately, when our company, Volo Communications, merged with VoIP Inc. in early 2005(Google Steven Ivestor). Worst thing that could have ever happened to us.
Another mark, or a collaborator?
I'm going back to sleep. This "Cancer Hater" either doesn't seem to get the big picture (or just doesn't care), or has his finger in the pie. I'm thinking you're just another overzealous believer that fundamentals are meaningless. You stated that you're experienced in raising capital, which suggests you have experience in financial advising or sales - and most advisers and sales people in the financial world have none-to-little personal experience in performing an actual hard quantitative analysis, and focus only on malleable stats and soft qualitative analyses that have been provided for them, but not conducted by them.
Cancer, while your assertion that CEOs deserve the rewards for the risks, exposure, etc. is correct and I agree with you, rest assured Tony Cataldo has never assumed any risks nor ever worked hard (or even worked) in all of his jobs as CEO of past companies. While the primary investors, a'la toxic investors, have been the first to assume risk, they quickly transfer the risks upon secondary investors buying the diluted shares the PIPEs have shorted. Unlike yourself, Tony Cataldo and his partners do not care about finding a cure for cancer a single bit. They only care about duping investors (or as they call them, "marks").
As someone with experience in raising capital, I'm sure you're aware of these types of things. But can you honestly say that it's the right thing to do? These are the activities that Tony Cataldo does when he assumes the mantle of CEO of a public company - please note: I am not exaggerating or embellishing at all.
1. Deliberately shorting your own company's stock, knowing it will screw your investors?
2. Deliberately pitching to investors (especially retirees on fixed income) and lying to them about the state of your company and its direction, when you have already made plans to close shop and declare bankruptcy?
3. Deliberately putting on a front making it appear you are developing products and services, when in fact you are pulling budgets and putting all the company funds in a lockbox account, with no intention of spending a single dime except the bare minimum of operations that help front the appearance that you are running a legitimate business... not even office supplies for the employees that work for you?
4. That the only company money you WILL spend is on "business trips" to New York City, in which you stay at only the finest 5-star hotels and take limousine rides to and from the airport?
5. Put your own son on the payroll and give him a vehicle allowance, even though he doesn't actually work for the company or do anything, just so that you can continue fostering his childish believe that he is a filmmaker and keep bankrolling his horrible films?
6. Actually come to the location of the business you are CEO of more than a total of 3 days within a year-and-half?
Cancer, does this sound like a hard working, risk-taking CEO to you?
The only thing Tony works hard at is finding as many ways possible to take risks with others people's money
hookers... drugs... gambling... strip clubs... exotic cars... that's what your investment with Tony Cataldo pays for in the end!
OT: Ironically I have jury duty on that same day, but in Tampa... FYI, you may want to msg me your email address for more private and secure communications..
OT: Got your msg Blood.
The answer is no. No one ever got back pay. We were all left hanging dry.
Second, I don't know. I logged into PACER to check for bankruptcy filings and see several things regarding Volo, VoiceOne, and Caerus (Voip's parent company)as a party, but don't feel like paying the 8 cents per page. But I see names. Salkin and Mittman keep coming up, don't know who either of them are.
Name Case No. Case Title Chapter / Lead BK case Date Filed Party Role Date Closed
VOIP, INC (pty)
(1 case) 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 7 06/02/09 Debtor N / A
VOIP, Inc (pty)
(1 case) 09-02136-RBR Dillworth, Trustee v. Black Forest International, LLC et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 10/09/09 Defendant N / A
VoIP Acquisition Company (pty)
(1 case) 11-02327-RBR Salkin v. WABEC, LLC et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 07/11/11
Defendant N / A
VoIP Holdings (pty)
(1 case) 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 7 06/02/09 Debtor N / A
Voip Solutions Inc (cr)
(1 case) 09-02471-RBR Salkin v. Mittman et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 11/30/09 Defendant N / A
Caerus Billing Inc (pty)
(1 case) 09-02471-RBR Salkin v. Mittman et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 11/30/09 Defendant N / A
Caerus Networks (DE) (pty)
(1 case) 09-02471-RBR Salkin v. Mittman et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 11/30/09 Defendant N / A
Caerus Networks (FL) (pty)
(1 case) 09-02471-RBR Salkin v. Mittman et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 11/30/09 Defendant N / A
Caerus, Inc. (pty)
(1 case) 09-02471-RBR Salkin v. Mittman et al Lead BK: 09-20935-RBR VOIP, INC 11/30/09 Defendant N / A
R&R changed ask to $2.00
I don't wanna sound conspiratorial here, but don't you find it odd that as soon as I pointed out my belief that it wont go back above a dollar, this immediately happens?
Its not the first time that I've pointed something out about GNBP, and then an unusual occurrence relatable to the observation immediately happens within an hour or two.
Just sayin'...
R&R L2 bid now @ .40
Ask @ .975. I think it's safe to say this stock will probably never see a dollar ever again. At the rate the bid keeps dropping, we should be hitting a dime within 3 months. By spring of '12, the sub-penny slide should have already arrived.
If I were Tony....
I'd sell what I can now and pay off that tax bill.
OT: Wow, that sucks.
Just shows who's been lurking around. Sounds like desperation is setting in. I may be spot on with my prediction that GNBP's attempts to penetrate the secondary market are not going as anticipated.
Hey Tony, how's life been treating you? How much cash have you pilfered from the till lately, to pay Cory to make his horrible movie? He should get a real job and see what its like for every other average Joe out there who has to work for a living, and stop relying on you to put him on the payroll of every company you run... into the ground! By the way, you still owe me roughly $7,000 dollars - DEADBEAT!
Mixed signals.
The 15/50/200 day SMAs are all stacked from least to highest above price, and price is trending flat as if to suggest a trough - normally you'd expect to see the price trend upward at this point.
However... fast and slow stoch indicate otherwise. %K and %%D are both slowly trending upwards and are very tight. Not seeing the divergence of %K slipping under %D normally associated with price troughs before surge. This is very interesting to see a convergence of rising stoch and falling prices over last 6 weeks.
RSI remains relatively flat over the last 6 weeks. GNBP appears to neither be undersold or overbought. All signs point to GNBP reaching a false equilibrium.
At $1.00 GNBP now "appears" to be at the price that it's "supposed" to be at. It doesn't surprise me that this price is almost exactly halfway between R&R's current spread.
I think there's room for GNBP to push it to $1.02 - #1.03. I doubt it can exceed $1.05 before falling back into the 0.90 range again. If I had to assess this weeks price movements after analysing the tech indicators, I'd have to say there was a failed attempt at a PnD this week.
It was only 500 shares
But 13 minutes before that someone else bought 10,000 @ $0.93
$1.0000 500 OBB 11:11:18
$0.9300 10,000 OBB 10:58:08
$0.9300 500 OBB 09:33:58
R&R still holding the ax. At 9:28 this morning they put in order to buy 5000 @ $0.85, sell 500 @ $1.20
Made the list at #120.
So the address was even more wrong.
The GNBP mistake was 10880 W. Olympic Blvd, not Wilshire.
Whoever maintains the website got confused and swapped the Wilshire address onto the W. Olympic location.
Vulgarity?
So this is the reason why it was pulled. Because I criticized GNBP as being a "...@#$%&! up company" for listing a non-existing address as their own address. That was the only "vulgar" word in the entire post.
I could accept that as a valid excuse, except that are plenty of other posts far more vulgar than #310 that I've posted in the past.
I can only assume someone from GNBP read it in time where it could still be pulled. It's no coincidence that the post was pulled at the same time that GNBP corrected their website and listed a new address.
Seriously?
I posted the different addresses being reported for GNBP and the post gets yanked?
WTF!
So the other night I reported that GNBP's website listed their address as 10880 W. Olympic Blvd, Suite 400, Los Angeles CA 90642. I criticized them for listing a non-existing address on their own website. I confirmed this address did not exist at the LA County appraisers website.
Then I listed another address coming up on Yahoo Finance which I believed to be the correct address, as 11500 W. Olympic, Suite 400., which is a provider of virtual office hosting solutions.
There was another address listed on Google Finance in Las Vegas, at 8275 Eastern Ave, Suite 200, Las Vegas, NV 89123 - another virtual office provider.
Today the post got yanked. I check out GNBP's website and... lo and behold, the address has been corrected to 11500 W. Olympic. This is no coincidence!
I don't understand at all why this post (#310) was yanked. I did not post anyone's personal home address. I re-posted public information of business addresses that had been listed on other websites as being addresses of GNBP. I realize I am now technically violating iHub TOS by re-posting info that was yanked, but this is total BS - the original post did not violate TOS at all. I call shenanigans!
GNBP chatter is dead.
I don't think anyone wants to buy.
The few forums I can find actually find have no discussions.
Blood, I think you and I are the only 2 people on the whole internets chatting about GNBP.
Some GNBP youtube videos
GNBP youtube video
This one's better . Brooke keeps staring at Larysa's tits.
Check out the L2 action.
Rodman & Renshaw is the only MM still playing. Yesterday afternoon they put in a bid @ .85 for 2500 shares.
R&R also specializes in providing investment banking to PIPEs. Makes me wonder who is directly pushing scrip for GNBP.
This morning it jumped to 5000 for same price. Thin market, wide spread - they're offering only 500 @ $1.40.
Looks like someone wants to force this price down to get more longs on board. I'll bet whoever is behind the increased short interest is happy to see that. I smell a PnD around the corner.
Oh wait, we're talking about a Cataldo company and it's getting close to the 15th of the current month. Yeah, I definitely smell a PnD. I'd expect the next PnD to occur between 9/12/11 through 9/19/11
You'd think it'd be easy to disclose info.
No office to manage
No staff to supervise.
No production to monitor.
Just keep sending money to Dr. Whats-his-name to do his thing.
With nothing to do but sit around with his thumb up his ass all day, you'd think Tony could easily have some reports done with better-looking info - hell, at least make some shit up so no one will see the truth behind the smoke and mirrors.
The only thing done right was this questionable $5M loan.
No.
I am only calculating fair book value straight off the balance sheet. With an extra 5m cash and 5m liabilities, it still balances out.
If this were a more serious company I would discount future revenue less future interest payments to create a revised forecast of future income. This revised forecast would change fair valuation.
Lemme tell ya Blood, I wish I cared enough to read GNBP's 10Q in detail, because I wouldn't have been so hasty to declare it dead. This doesn't change my valuation, but it does change my outlook on GNBP's shelf life.
This 5M loan is actually good news for GNBP. This cash ensures that GNBP can make the quarterly CRADA payments to Dr. Whats-his-name. Now they just need to P-n-D to cover their SG&A. I hate admitting this, but there is a tarnished silver lining in the dark GNBP cloud.
If they can keep their hands out of the cookie jar, if they cut the bullshit salaries and the perquisites, if there is a chance GNBP can keep pulling more marks into their pyramid, then it may succeed but it would take several years. That's a lot of ifs, and Tony and his friends are not known for patience nor prudence.
I would advise potential shareholders that GNBP is a terrible choice for short-term trades. However... I would recommend adding a small amount of GNBP for the long-term (3 to 5 years holding period) as a good measure of diversity in your portfolio - probably no more than 1% or 2% of your total portfolio value to keep it safe, and definitely NOT on margin.
For those who enjoy a high tolerance for risk, 5% would still be safe, but any more than that is too risky. If you already hold stocks in health or medical technology, I would not recommend owning GNBP if your current exposure to the sector is 10% or more of your portfolio value.
Having said that, I still will not touch GNBP because I hate Tony Cataldo because he is a filthy piece of shit and I wouldn't want my money to help make him richer.