An experience we ALL have noted re: Agora, and Michael Murphy, et al...which is typical of reverse mergers:
There is a much higher failure rate amongst RTO companies versus the traditional IPO. Much smaller and less successful companies are able to become public through the RTO, and many are badly undercapitalized. Often these stocks trade very inefficiently in the absence of any sponsorship or following.
There is a cottage industry of merchant bankers and entrepreneurs who specialize in orchestrating reverse mergers. Unfortunately, there are no barriers to entry in this field.
Therefore, scams are common place.
Through various methods, scam artists manage to accumulate large positions in the free trading shares of the shell company. An RTO is consummated with a marginal private company, and the scam artists put together a massive publicity campaign designed to create activity in the stock.
Unrealistic promises and absurd claims of corporate performance find their way to the public. The enhanced trading volume allows the scam artist to dump his shares on the unsuspecting public, most of whom eventually lose their money once the newly formed public company fails. This scam is commonly known as a "Pump and Dump
