Andy, I think you're just trying to pick apart statements here and there. tc is here for the long haul as he states. In my opinion, I'll take the man at his word, as will many others, and state that I do not believe he is front running. You, of course, are entitled to your opinion, as well.
Let's just post the whole message for all to see:
By: tchauncy
15 Nov 2004, 09:20 AM EST
Msg. 184787 of 185485
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I’m back and just finished scanning some six hundred posts. So let me first say, that there were some excellent posts, with both pros and cons about the past weeks happenings. I wish I could respond individually to many of them. But there isn’t enough time to do each justice. So let me just do one post to try to cover most.
I am glad to see that baron did “fess up”. However, IMO, a week too late. Now since he has kept a low profile so far after his admission, I will only make a few points to address my particular reasons for my consternation towards him last week. I do have all my e-mail correspondence with him, and I am sure he has my responses so suffice it to say, it would not behoove either of us to embellish his side.
Let me first apologize to all longs for getting him involved in OMOG, particularly those of my friends who knew what he had done earlier in the year with another stock, yes HBSL, on a “knee-jerk” reaction. I had been asked by several if I felt he might do the same here. I felt not, they trusted my opinion, I was wrong, they were right. But in all fairness, I must give partial credit to baron for at least giving me a “heads up” on what he was planning, a week ago. Less honorable people may have just dumped clandestinely. Though I suspect that he knew, though I might not be able to prove it right away, that I would know very quickly if he was coming out in size. In fact, he sold his first two million shares last Friday a week ago, and though, I couldn’t raise him on the phone, I did leave a message on his voice male about with my suspicions. He did admit it when we spoke later, then sent me an e-mail, followed by a call that next Saturday morning stating he wanted out and quickly. He told me he already had given instruction to his brokers to start selling in size Monday morning. I was not happy with his decision, particularly since he could not give me any logical reason, (primary reasons he gave was, he was now too overweighed in this stock since it moved up so much, and he had a big tax bill due next April and needed to raise money for it, and concern about the “shorts always win”) but told him I could live with him selling, even in size IF he posted on all chat boards that he had been recommending the stock, that it was his intention to start a rapid liquidation. Yes, I explained to him that if he did NOT make such a post, and blew into the market anyway, that I would do it for him. He thought about it, we spoke several more times before the weekend ended, and came up with a “liquidation plan”, which would allow him to be out of effectively his whole sixty plus million share position over five or six weeks. (BTW, his average cost base was around .008). With that agreed to, he obviously did not make the post.
Now why did I feel it was necessary for him to make such a post if he was going to blow out? IMO, it sure didn’t have anything to do with hurting the long term outlook for the company. The company is not using its stock to raise money so having the price spike was a nuisance, not a blessing. So, since I am in this for the long haul, what bothered me was all the HLSH holders that had come over here after “M” made several posts on the HLSH board, followed by other HLSH’ers including Baron who fueled the flames of my involvement over here which caused the stock to not just break out, but to soar. Now IMO, the stock should be valued in the .03-.04 level based on just existing fundamentals, but was held down due to excessive shorting. But now since the big spike it made so quickly, it was sitting in a tenuous position in the middle of that range. Having so many shares come out so quickly, could end up creating a precipitous drop that would at least temporarily hurt those who jumped in at higher levels.
On Monday, he did sell some shares as per our agreement, but I did suspect that he probably sold a few more than agreed upon. On Tuesday, he sold a few more. On Wednesday I could tell from the MM that he used that he was getting more aggressive. On Thursday, he knew I was going to Florida and would be out of pocket the last half day of trading on an plane and that is when he got very aggressive in his selling. On Friday morning, he spoke with AB about his selling intentions, and AB told him he would personally take him out of a six million share piece at a fixed price. And if taken out of that piece, he said he would hold off further aggressive selling since he would pretty much have his “nut” back in the stock. Not twenty minutes later, after he completed that piece, he came back with an 8 million share piece. It was at that time, that I started making my posts on Friday. And it was also at that time that I got the message to him after talking with AB, that he just sell all he had left. We would buy it. The rest is history.
Yes, I was in Florida this weekend. But let me say, this trip was NOT made specifically for me to meet with AB, I had other personal reasons to be in Orlando this past weekend. And yes I did spend time with AB, he drove up Friday from Miami, and drove back Sunday. The primary topics of discussion were the move of the Headquarters to Houston and to structure the outside financing for the drilling of the Panola wells which would be financed NOT by issuing more stock, but by more conventional Joint Venture/Partnership Oil & Gas structure. This financing would be coming from AB investors. We pretty much accomplished all we needed to and feel very comfortable that, company-wise, everything is moving even better than we had hoped for a few months ago, and are excited about the future.
BTW, anyone tries to speculate that the reason I was there was to “cut a deal” for either myself, or any of my people, forget about it. As has been the situation from day one. I didn’t ask for anything, and he didn’t offer. We are in this together to make a very viable oil company, and nothing on the horizon that we can see is going to get in the way of that.
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