INSIDER SCORED $642G ON IRAQ WAR
nypost.com
By PAUL THARP
April 23, 2003 -- Although Iraqi oil fields didn't go up in flames, celebrated oil-well firefighter Danny Clayton struck paydirt anyway just on the threat - by unloading stock in his company.
Clayton made headlines at the start of the Iraqi invasion by saying his 20-man crew was in the war zone, ready to douse any arson fires by Saddam's saboteurs in the oil fields.
The announcement caused Clayton's 1 million shares in his employer, Boots & Coots International Well Control, to soar nearly 43-fold on prospects of another windfall from burning oil wells.
In 1991, Clayton had helped save nearly 300 of the flaming Kuwaiti oil wells torched by Saddam, raking up $100 million in profit.
This time around, the U.S. had budgeted up to $500 million for oil firefighters through Halliburton, which hired Boots and Coots to douse the fires and cap wells.
As shares skyrocketed, Clayton and other insiders at Boots & Coots began selling stakes, with Clayton unloading at least 811,800 shares between Jan. 24 and March 21, according to regulatory filings.
Clayton cashed out about $642,000 on those sales, which six months earlier would have been worth just under $48,000.
Boots & Coots, where Clayton is listed as an officer - senior vice president - and operations manager, told several media organizations on March 18 that Saddam might torch as many as 2,000 of Iraqi's oil wells.
The next day, Boots & Coots hit a yearly high of $2.55 - up nearly 43-fold from its low six months earlier of just 6 cents a share.
At the time, Boots and Coots also had been in default for two months on $1 million in loans from a creditor, Checkpoint Business, which had demanded the board put the company into bankruptcy and cancel its 72 million shares of common stock. |
