ttre's new ir company represented purfumia. P U
The Bill Gates Sleaze Factor
Andrew Evans was recently profiled in a very unflattering light
by Red Herring. The story is too convoluted to go into great
detail here. However, it involves a number of different public
Internet companies (Zero.net, Envision, Perfumania and Interosa),
two private off shore investment companies, and their convoluted
business relationships with each other.
Perfumania was the primary holding of his Internet incubator firm
Zero.net. In December of 1999, he was soliciting investment funds
on behalf of Zero from both a large public company (Omnicom) and
a well known venture capital firm (Olympic Private Ventures).
Naturally, the attractiveness of any deal to these firms was
highly correlated with Perfumania's stock price. It just
*happened* that at this time, two off shore investment companies
that he was associated with, owned 86% of the *public float* of
Perfumania.
I suppose it wouldn't surprise you to learn that in November of
2000, Olympic (which had invested with Mr. Evans), filed a suit
claiming that he had manipulated Perfumania's stock price. You
also probably wouldn't be shocked to learn that there have been
numerous complaints filed with the SEC against him.
What is surprising is the lack of due diligence that Omnicom and
Olympic failed to perform. Mr. Evans has an easily accessible
criminal record for bank fraud.
His case is not unique in that respect. Pixelon's story easily
tops this because its CEO was actually *on the lam from the law*.
However, there is something about this story that I find
incredibly interesting.
Namely, Mr. Evans and his wife are apparently good friends with
Bill Gates. Mr. Gates served on the board of one of their
investment firms in the mid eighties. He's visited them in
prison. When they were released, he even gave them *power of
attorney over his personal investments*.
"... when word got out in 1993 that convicted felons were
handling his finances, Mr. Gates distanced himself from the
couple. According to Mr. Evan's close associates, Mr. Gates, who
is godfather to the Evan's three children, still maintains a
personal and business relationship with his former money
managers".
Red Herring, July 15, 2001, page 65, Justin Hibbard.
redherring.com
The above was originally published in the July 5, 2001 issue
of Wall Street Harvest. |
