Dion Entertainment Corp -
Dion's CEO Leo a Bay Street promoter, according to brother Lou
Dion Entertainment Corp DIO
Shares issued 52,267,597 1999-10-04 close $2.33
Monday Oct 4 1999
Also Border Capital Corp (BOP)
by Brent Mudry
While chief executive Leo Dion and his brother Louis are both quite keen on the prospects for Dion Entertainment, the bingo-promoter-brothers are in denial about being stock promoters, especially stock promoters with any association to Howe Street. "At no time has Mr. Dion been a Howe Street stock promoter," states Bryce Cabott, Leo Dion's lawyer, who now has almost six years at bar. Mr. Cabott asserts that the term "Howe Street stock promoter" is "unethical and unprofessional" and causes "irreparable harm" to Mr. Dion and his company. (Last week, an associate at Mr. Cabott's law firm stated that the Dion brothers will also suffer "irreparable harm" to their potential multibillion dollar business if injunctions against Border Capital are not granted.)
Mr. Dion, his close associate Theresa Gortva and his brother Lou, who denies being any kind of stock promoter himself, point out that Dion Entertainment, based in the Vancouver suburb of White Rock and followed by Howe Street brokers, is actually listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. "He is a company builder ... if you want to, call him a Bay Street promoter," explains brother Lou, who hastens that Dion does not have any promoters. Brother Lou also points out that Ms. Gortva was totally wrong when she said that brother Leo fired him. "I have never been fired in my lifetime ... I left the company for him to run," states Louis Dion.
The Dion brothers and Ms. Gortva also all deny that Leo ever served as a director of Double Eagle Entertainment, the Dion brothers' disastrous previous bingo-stock promotion, which was listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. "My brother has never been involved in a public company in Vancouver ... he was not involved in Double Eagle," stated Louis Dion on Monday. (In a July 10, 1995, Double Eagle press release, Louis Dion announced that brother Leo, then the president and CEO of Dion Entertainment, had been appointed a director of Double Eagle, effective four months earlier.)
Louis Dion also has a different version of the demise of numerous major Double Eagle deals, vetoed by the VSE in August of 1996. The Howe Street exchange was concerned about Mr. Dion's management agreement, agreements for loans from Sodak Gaming International, a $1.5-million private placement, Double Eagle's acquisition of the right to manage a Czech bingo and lottery venture, and the granting of bonus shares and warrants to him for guaranteeing the Sodak loan. "I was working on getting information then ... its like audits, right ... we were in that process, there were some changes with the Czechs ... those were never declined, they were just never completed," explains Mr. Dion.
Louis Dion is also keen to assure Dion Entertainment's followers that he is not promoting the stock. The former Dion chairman says he is now just a shareholder, who like 10 other shareholders, like to tell people about the company. "I talked about it to my paperboy, yes, and a guy I met at a wedding ... I don't fly around the country promoting the stock," he explains.
While Lou denies he plays a role promoting brother Leo's stock, he remains a major proponent for Dion's big bingo potential. "Bingo is the most-played game in the world today ... it has 1.6 billion visits a year ... much more than movies," says Mr. Dion. "Bingo is over bowling, movies, NBA games ... and Dion is the leader in bingo." This leadership in bingo, he likens to that of Microsoft in software. Mr. Dion says that Dion Entertainment's market capitalization of $150-million is "just peanuts," and it will easily be over a billion dollars sometime in the near future. "I'm not a promoter," Mr. Dion reminds a reporter.
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