Newlead Holdings Ltd. (fka NEWLF)

[ItsMyOption]

This articles talks about toxic finance deals that NEWL was involved in.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/josh-sason-made-millions-from-penny-stock-financing

Magna’s biggest score came in 2013, when it helped a Greek shipping company called Newlead avoid bankruptcy. The shipper, which once owned 15 tankers and container ships, was down to four vessels. It had enough cash to cover about a month of operating losses.
The deal had a twist. Instead of giving Newlead a loan, Magna paid some of Newlead’s lenders for the right to collect its old debts. After Magna sued Newlead to collect, the two companies quickly filed a settlement where Newlead agreed to give Magna discounted stock that it could sell right away. A New York state judge signed off on the arrangement.
Sason said in an affidavit filed in the case that Magna, together with an unnamed partner, paid off $45 million of debt and received stock that it sold for $62 million—a $17 million profit before expenses.

The financing technique is legal as long as the debts that are being paid off are real and the financier doesn’t kick any of the money from the stock sale back to the company, according to Mark Lefkowitz, another penny-stock financier who pleaded guilty in 2012 to breaking those rules. “The bottom line is, it’s supposed to be used for bona fide conversions of debt to equity,” says Lefkowitz, who’s cooperating with the FBI. He cut an interview off quickly, saying he was due to be sentenced soon and needed to check with his FBI handler before talking.
The financing may have saved Newlead as a company—it avoided bankruptcy and bought new tankers—but it ruined it as a stock. The company has been so thoroughly pillaged that if you’d bought $3 million of shares in March 2013, just before Magna invested, you’d be left with a dime. Adjusted for reverse splits, the shares trade for 20 billionths of a penny—$0.0000000002. Newlead did not respond to a request for comment.