Ed: As usual, Mary leaves out numerous pertinent facts about Kingsway and ATG in order to conjure up yet another screwball theory that ends up painting Kingsway as the next villain to taint ATG.
First, Kingsway made the investment in ASTN subsidiary UTTC two years ago (January 2000), as part of the creation of a joint venture with ATG which was intended to be the platform through which eVWAP/iMATCH would be deployed into the Hong Kong and other Asian securities markets. Kingsway did not "buy" ASTN common a month ago with the intent of "boiler-rooming" it, they converted UTTC preferred that they bought 2 years ago, as part of a joint venture investment, into ASTN common (pursuant to the terms of its agreement to buy the UTTC preferred shares that it signed two years ago). If memory services, Kingsway's right to convert arose because UTTC was not IPO'd within a specified time period and Kingsway was entitled to have access to a public market for its interest. The sad part is that ATG's stock price was so low when they converted that they were able to get 18 Million shares for their UTTC preferred. That's why the magnitude of the conversion came as a bit of a surprise to most of us (and to me yet another disappointment). On the other hand, the fact that they traded a preferred stock interest in UTTC (which enjoys a liquidation preference over UTTC common, which is what ATG owns in UTTC) for ATG common at 16 cents a share says something about where they thought ASTN's stock price would go (IMO). But the bottom line is that they are now a "greater than 5%" shareholder (almost 30% at the moment) -- so as Mary knows, they are obligated to file with the SEC any time they sell stock in the company (which, BTW, is also true of Jameson, which holds 6-7% of ASTN common at the moment). Of course, there are no SEC filings yet indicating that they (or Jameson for that matter) have done so (or Mary would certainly have found them and posted them by now). We can't know if they will, and when (and at what price) -- not her, not me, not you, not anybody but them -- but when they do, we will find out about it.
As their SEC filing indicates, Kingsway is acquired ASTN common with intent to hold them for investment purposes, not with intent to turn around immediately and sell them to third parties. As she points out, the owner entity is a holding company. And as several other posters on Yahoo and RB pointed out earlier today, Kingsway is a pretty well known company in Hong Kong -- Mary's statements that they might be a boiler room operation are completely unsupported -- they are nothing less than wild speculation on her part based solely on the fact that they have offices in the British V.I., and that the street where their main offices are located in Hong Kong has a name that is similar to (though by no means the same as) the name of some entity affiliated with TK. They also have humans who work with them, and who sometimes wear suits and ties, the same as TK does . . . there's another connection. Quite the conspiracy. I guess the execution of almost 50,000 shares of ASTN stock at $0.40 between 3:30 and 4:00 today must be getting to her -- she seems to be losing it in her desperation to find an evil explanation for the stock's recent positive performance.
Classic Mary research -- thin, speculative, and distorted. You should look up Kingsway on the internet (you can get there through Google) and you should look at the SEC filings surrounding their original investment in UTTC, when ATG Asia was formed. They tell much more of the story than Mary does in her summary of her theory.
Good luck hunting. Let us know if you find anything we should be concerned about. Take care.
MST |
