"Bloody car ran 80 miles on a friggin gallon of gasoline..."
There is that word " Friggin " again!!!!
Subject: Test run went well !
Date: Mon, 12 January 1998 11:25 AM EST
From: TokyoMexx
Message-id: <19980112162501.LAA19942@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Just talked to BAAT..
Last Sat they ran the pre-test at the Burbank Airport..
City of Burbank gave them a red carpet ...
Bloody car ran 80 miles on a friggin gallon of gasoline...
Their license with Mercedes is still in effect and they are coming as well as host of other suto manfs from US Europe and Asia..
It will be a media blitz ,,,
15 th of January is the world demonstration ....
Expect news on this starting very shortly ...
Joe Bat
February 9, 1998
B.A.T. International (OTCBB: BAAT)
Feb. 7, 1998 close: $1.63
Sponsored by WallStreet Guru
B.A.T. Out of Hell
by Lynn N. Duke, staff writer
Why wouldn't an upstart company want to patent technology the whole world is waiting for?
At first blush, it would appear a little known company has captured the wallets and imaginations of some well-heeled international firms - titans with names like Benz, Lockheed Martin and Volkswagen. But a closer look would show that the fledgling operation, like its flagship product, is long on wind but short on substance.
B.A.T. International, (OTC Bulletin Board: BAAT) - not to be confused with the UK conglomerate BAT Industries - calls itself a "diversified advanced transportation technology company" and claims to have the know-how to convert gasoline engine cars to hybrid electric vehicles, at very low cost and with virtually no retooling.
Hmmmm.
The company's stock has taken off recently, trading its entire 25 million share float three times in two weeks - including once in a single day - as the stock has zoomed from a mere 7 cents to $3.25 per share on the morning of Feb. 5th.
But Joe LaStella, the five-year-old company's president, is hard to pin down when it comes to financial statements - they're in the works - or future plans.
B.A.T. did manage to wangle an introduction to a Czech company out of Lockheed Martin. The aerospace giant played matchmaker between B.A.T. and SKODA ELCAR as part of its obligation for doing business in the Czech Republic, according to Lance Lamberton, a Lockheed Martin spokesman.
"We have no investment in B.A.T.," Lamberton said. "We were reluctant to put out a press release, but we wanted to let people know that we had made the introduction."
But B.A.T.'s October 1997 claim that it has a technology license agreement with DAUG, a joint venture between DaimlerBenz and Volkswagen, is even murkier: The joint venture was dissolved two years ago, according to Wolfgang Scheunemann, a spokesman for DaimlerBenz in Germany. Scheunemann said he was unaware of any agreements with B.A.T.
Nor is there any evidence the Burbank, Calif.-based company is the darling of Detroit. The Big Three automakers, and their peers in Japan, are already deep into their own technology. GM has an electric car that can be leased in Arizona and California, according to Jim Evans, a GM spokesman. It will have two hybrid electric vehicles ready for production in 2001 with ranges of 350 miles and 550 miles, at 60 mpg and 80 mpg respectively, Evans said. But GM has no relationship with B.A.T. The car B.A.T. has been touting in a flurry of press releases gets 92 mpg, according to company lore.
Although industry and academic skeptics were reluctant to pan B.A.T. on the record, there was a consensus that its hype outpaces its capacity.
"They're typical of a small company like that who are forced to make claims for their technology which exceeds what the technology really does," said Andrew Burke, a member of the research faculty and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California Davis.
Muddy Waters
LaStella cast more doubt on his company's technology recently when he said in an online interview that he would not file for a patent "until we have a partner with deep pockets to defend our patents if required. Patents are not pending until such time as we license a major manufacturer of automobiles or engines. We plan to keep our technologies as trade secrets."
Now in this same interview on Jan. 19, LaStella tells his audience that B.A.T.'s technology has been reviewed by "some of the top patent attorneys in California and their opinions are, we possess very strong claims to perfect our patent."
Well, the Stock Detective would like to know who these attorneys are - LaStella never names them - and who sold them their sheepskin.
"I think this gentleman's statement is very ill-advised," said Barry Evans, a partner in the New York law firm Whitman, Breed, Abbott & Morgan, where he is head of the intellectual property group. "By the time they get a deep pocket to enforce their patent, it will be too late. He will not have created an intellectual property structure that would attract that deep pocket."
But there's even more trouble.
Once a technology is made public - as B.A.T.'s was every time it was tested or touted - the clock starts ticking. In the U.S., the company has one year to file its patent application or lose its rights to it, according to Sandra Etherton, a patent attorney at Fennemore Craig in Phoenix. And the day the technology goes public, you lose all foreign patent rights, unless your claim's already been staked, Etherton said.
Evans agreed that sitting on a patent application could harm the company.
"The most important thing is to get the patent application done and file it early so it covers like an umbrella," Evans said. "The patent always precedes the actual fruition of technology. If you don't, God knows you may have nothing at all. You can be knocked off in a heartbeat. The later you file the greater the likelihood that someone else will creep in. You could end up paying royalties."
LaStella pooh-poohs doubters, alluding to big deals - "My people are out all over the world negotiating" - and even bigger deals: "Without giving away insider information, don't you think I've been talking to all of the big companies?"
Playing Hooky
But the biggest deal of all could come from Washington, D.C. Micro-cap stocks like B.A.T. that consistently trade very thinly, and suddenly take off for no apparent reason other than press releases, in the past have attracted the attention of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
SEC officials won't give the specific criteria that trigger a vote on suspending a stock's trading. They said such a checklist would benefit the very people they're trying to deter. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the SEC has increased its use of temporarily suspending trading in stocks it suspects are being manipulated or appear to be awash in misinformation. The SEC can suspend trading for 10 business days, and the suspension must approved by a commission vote, which can be organized within a tight timeframe, an SEC official said.
Although the suspensions are meant as warnings to investors, as well as a roadblock to manipulators, they can have dire consequences. For example, the SEC halted trading in Rocky Mountain International on Dec. 22 when the stock was at $1.63. The SEC suspended trading "because of questions regarding the accuracy of statements concerning, among other things, the ownership and value of certain assets claimed by RMIL, RMIL's business operations and the merger of RMIL with third parties." The stock has not resumed trading so anyone stuck with the stock may end up with nothing but wallpaper.
Questionable press releases have also played a role in getting three other companies suspended since November, two of which have not resumed trading.
As for B.A.T., LaStella says the company will file audited financial statements with the SEC within the week, and would not make any other financial information available until then. But a Feb. 5 report by Bloomberg cites December 1996 audited financial statements that show B.A.T. had a negative net worth of $229,847, no sales for the fiscal year and owed $71,176 in back payroll taxes to the IRS.
Whether B.A.T. is the answer to the world's energy problem or simply a bulletin board stock out of control is not clear, but investors may want to gas up their cars before heading to the bank.
Tread lightly.
-The Stock Detective |
