Alys, I'm back. Too cold on the Chesapeake to fish, the season ends tomorrow and the city is better for New Year's anyway. I've read the thread and your post # 951 is excellent, definitely a keeper.
Jim Baker, your knowledge of the stock market and a public company management's fiduciary responsibility is painfully inadequate. There are brokers on the other side of the buttonwood tree that look for people like you. Keep your day job. But you did hit the nail on the head when you said you would trade in both the management and the activist shareholders to give the stock a clean start.
It's obvious that current management has capitulated and is cooperating with the transition, though you should be aware that Lon et al have no input as to the new CEO. It's kind of the opposite of 'it takes one to know one'. Don't listen to me, just ask Lon. Or Carm
Santoro, he's the decision-maker with the CEO experience.
The problem has been with what you call the activist and I call the dissident side. The de facto leader has been a guy who was part of the last financing and did some PR for the company but whose aggressive, take-no-prisoners style clashed with the corporate culture, or lack thereof, so he was not employed long. No matter since the guy already had more money than anyone other than Legere or Croesus. But oh to suffer the ignominy of being fired by a Lon Stone! It is rumored that the guy bought a lot of stock, over a million shares, under $1.50 and sold a lot of stock north of $5 last spring. Ever since, through the telephone and the internet, he has been the constant thorn in TCLN's side. A knife-twisting, table-thumping, never-say-die, bulldog of a thorn. I'm not saying I totally disagreed with him but he has definitely gone over the edge. Lately I hear he has been soliciting sales of TCLN stock. I think he wants to drive the stock of management off margin. (I don't think that would affect us because I called out there offering to take stock off of anyone's hands and there were no takers, they have a buyer evidently. Years ago I bought 60,000 shares @ 2.25 this way) Anyhow there is a caveat to this guy's bearishness, he has told many people (including myself) that, upon Lon Stone's resignation, he will buy a million shares. Whatever, he has been dovetailing his bearishness into year-end tax selling and there is only one more day of that. We'll see what clothes this emperor is wearing come January. Oh, one other thing, he also tells people that TCLN will hit quadruple double figures within two years.
Does this guy sound familiar to anyone? |
