Upgrade CEO Bland on Lawsuits, Shares and Filings: Commentary
Seattle, March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Daniel Bland, the chief executive and president of
Upgrade International Corp., talks about lawsuits against the company, its declining
share price and plans to file financial documents with regulators.
Shares in Upgrade, a developer of smart cards that can store more data than existing
products, fell about two-thirds during the past seven trading days on investor concern the
company hasn't released any information about its finances.
``We are concerned that confidence is waning. We have only one way to respond to that,
and that is to develop our business. Every time there is an event that happens from the
company perspective, we must update the Form 10 (a document listing financial
information). We're going to file it imminently.'
``When you're sued, and bringing in defense council, they want to look at your Form 10,
and any time you do a news release you have to redo your Form 10. Anytime that I give
an internal deadline, it's subject to extension. We have a whole new set of attorneys to
look at this.'
(The lawsuits are) completely unsubstantiated. The allegations in the complaint (seeking
class-action status) are completely without fact. The company is going to aggressively
defend this lawsuit, and is going to roll out this business, as it has continued to do from
the onset. To date, there is one person in the class, and that person bought stock at $68
and sold at $64, and lost a total of $20,000.'
``We believe, once the market is completely developed, people are going to recognize
that technology. There are enormous forces against us, as there are in any start-up.
Anytime you fight the status quo you have people against you. People are going to be
impacted by your success. That is what you do when you develop a technology that is
revolutionary.'
Mar/03/2000 15:32
For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here.
(C) Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P.
etc. |
