June 11, 2015: One sure sign that management of a penny stock company has evil intentions for the public is when it announces a phony baloney intention of a stock buyback. It's a common ploy. invoked by many, but never fully engaged. Rarely is this attempt at fleecing the public more evident that the recent announcement by Sylios Corp., which currently trades under the ticker UNGS, a reflection of its previous name, US Natural Gas Corp. A future ticker change is expected in order to sweep the shenanigans illustrated here under the proverbial rug.
On May 21, 2015, UNGSannounced yet another increase to its previously declared share repurchase program. The increase, from up to $400,000 to up to $500,000 worth of stock, seems like a significant endeavor for a company with a current market cap under $1 million. Of course the key words here are up to. 5 bucks worth of stock would meet that overextended promise.
The original intention, a $250,000 repurchase program was announced on January 12, 2011 and memorialized in a Form 8-K filing. That number was first increased to $400,000 through a January 12, 2012 announcement, before the recent doubling of the plan. In this May 13, 2015 filing, we find that the company claims to have reacquired a paltry 4,625,000 shares of its stock during 2014 at an unspecified price. But even if we assume that all of those shares were acquired at the year high of $.0027 which they certainly weren't, that would equal an unimpressive $12,487 worth of stock. That is certainly not a reason to increase the value of the buy back. The May 13th filing also stated that no shares had been repurchased thus far in 2015.
What we do find is that since the original announcement the number of shares outstanding has increased from 108,379,411 to 4,910,250,000, an increase of over 4,400%. Not much of a buyback going on here, folks.
Obviously, the whole thing is a sham. The company might repurchase a nominal number of shares, but UNGS's ability or willingness to carry out even a modest repurchase is suspect at best. A look at the company's most recent financial report shows that it has $4,404 in the bank and no revenues. Where oh where will it get $500,000? It won't
Predictably, the May 21st announcement has been followed by the launch of a new Pump & Dump campaign which launches today. Whether lemmings are prepared to jump off this particular cliff remains to be seen, but what is clear is that UNGS will say anything to get people to buy its intrinsically worthless stock.
