Marty,
The weightier issues of concern that have been expressed by myself and others on the thread have been summarily dismissed by yourself and many other tsig zealots based on what Mr. Gordon has said in addressing these concerns.
The tsig bulls seems so quick to grasp the sayings of Mr. Gordon as infallible and brand heretical anyone who does not accept his word as the gospel truth.
Solid DD however, requires as a foundation reliable source material "always check your references" is the watch phrase that merits application even when applied to company founders and CEO's.
The central issue in the tsig debate is the credibility, reliability and the believability of Mr. Gordon and tsig.
When we examine the past public record, it clearly casts a shadow of doubt on Mr. Gordon's infallible word.
A. In Sept. of 1994, the SEC imposed a cease and desist order against "harvest", a privately held company controlled by Mr. Gordon and against Mr. Robert P. Gordon PERSONALLY for "alleged misrepresentations".
B. On August 22, 1996, legal proceedings were filed in district court by "Ungerleider" v. Robert P. Gordon (personally) and Phoenix information corp. The suit alleges that defendants failed to perform "oral promises" which plaintiff contends were part of the settlement agreement.
C. Numerous lawsuits pending against tsig claim "breach of contract" (failure to keep written word) and breach of "oral" agreement.
Added to these allegations of the public record are recent conflicting statements of Mr. Gordon.
A. During Gambler and Beebs conference call with Mr. Gordon on 6/4 (post #1015), Mr. Gordon stated that the 5 million dollar loan that he had signed and made available to tsig on 4/23/98 was not going to be needed due to the private placement scheduled for completion in mid-July. Three weeks later on 6/25 an S-8 is filed with the SEC declaring that Mr. Gordon had as of the date of the filing sold 6,480,000 shares of tsig common stock that had been registered for sale on May 8th.
On 6/30 Gambler and Beebs have another CC with Mr. Gordon to discuss his selling of shares and other issues (post #1594). Mr. Gordon stated that he sold the 6,480,000 shares to a private investment group in order to loan the proceeds to tsig.
If it is true that Mr. Gordon sold these shares in order to loan the proceeds to tsig and in fact stated that he did loan the proceeds to tsig, he would have had to have done so within a 21 day period between the 6/4 conference call and the 6/25 filing date of the S-8.
In view of Mr. Gordon's statement on 6/4 that the loan would NOT be needed, it seems rather amazing that within the next 21 days his thinking could be so dramatically reversed so as to pursue the sale of 6,480,000 of his personally owned shares, find a buyer, negotiate a deal, draw up the legal documents, close the deal and loan the proceeds to tsig. If this were in fact true, it would be "light speed" in comparison to the months it has taken for the private placement that has been long in the works and which has yet to be completed. But if were to somehow have occurred, as Mr. Gordon has stated, the fact of the matter is that it renders as false Mr. Gordon's declaration on 6/4 that the loan from himself to tsig would not be needed.
B. During the 6/4 CC, Mr. Gordon stated that they (tsig) have commitments for the entire 7.5 million PP and that the deal will be complete by mid-July. However, on 7/9 Mister Ex posted to the thread (#1864) that he had just received a copy of the PP and that his DD indicated the presentations of the PP were ongoing and that tsig was receiving favorable responses. If what Mister Ex reported is true, is it a far cry from Mr. Gordon's statement that the entire 7.5 million was already committed as of 6/4.
C. During the 6/4 CC Mr. Gordon that the website "WILL be done by 6/8, but that testing and linking to various search engines, call centers and stuff like that would take a week or two to be perfectly in place".... This statement has already proved to be false.
On 6/16 in a press release Mr. Gordon stated that the CCI website is scheduled to be launched within the next 30 days.... This prophecy is also close to being declared false.
The statements of Mr. Gordon surrounding the website launch well illustrate the reason for many of Mr. Gordon's legal problems and his credibility shortage. He is clearly a man that "shoots from the hip" (or dare I say 'lip') without knowing if his gun is even loaded. He makes statements, declarations and commitments without fully understanding the issues and without the ability to see to it that they become reality. The 5 million dollar loan is a case in point:
Signed in April by Mr. Gordon to ensure that funds would be available to tsig, as requested by the board of directors, Mr. Gordon has now implied that he did not have the funds available to meet that obligation and commitment until he sold his 6,480,000 shares sometime between 6/4 and 6/25, a sale that as of 6/4 he was not even contemplating.
D. On 6/4 Mr. Gordon also stated that the $2,250,000 obligation to CCI as part of the original purchase agreement had already been paid. On 6/30, Mr. Gordon verifies that the CCI deal has not yet been completed and that payment of the 6 million shares to CCI had thus not yet been paid.
Does it seem logical that prior to the deal being completed tsig would pay $2,250,000 to CCI when they had not yet approved the final audit report? The fact that they had withheld payment of the 6 million shares until final approval argues against the rational of Mr. Gordon's claim that the $2,250,000 payment had already been made prior to the 6/4 CC.
The most powerful against Mr. Gordon's claim that the $2,250,000 had been paid to CCI between 4/30 (the date of the announced acquisition) and 6/4 (date of the CC) is that there is no reasonable explanation for the cash availability that would have made it possible to make such a payment between those dates.
Please review post #1380 wherein Mr. Gordon is challenged to address this claim (it contains a detailed reconstruction of the cash position of tsig from 3/31 through 6/4 based on documents filed by the SEC and conclusions that are drawn from these), a challenge that has yet to be addressed and rebuffed by Mr. Gordon and those who have questioned him.
E. To this very day tsig continues to misrepresent itself to the investing public, case in point: The CCI acquisition and the tsig website.
When tsig announced the definitive agreement with CCI, signed in March, it was also announced that CCI earnings for 1997 were 1.4 million (ten percent of sales). In a 4/30 press release, tsig announced the "completion of the CCI acquisition". Those who read the press release including most everyone on this thread (Gambler included, please see post #1072 for verification) were led to the conclusion that CCI was a done deal "completed" with no possibility of rescission. The press release was misleading since it did not even mention the contingencies that were still attached to the completion of the deal. It led investors to believe something that was not true.
Additionally in the same press release, the "unaudited" earnings for CCI were mentioned as being 800,000 for 1997. This was very subtle, easily missed by many. Rather than coming out forthright and clearly stating that the much publicized earnings report for 1997 of 1.4 million (10% of sales) was in error, it was instead slipped into one press release that was overlooked and missed by many current investors and most future investors. In fact, if you review the tsig thread from the beginning, May 1st, (the day after the press release, which mentions the 800k earnings figure), you will find that the only mention of this 800k earnings figure is in the body of the initial post by Gambler. However, in that same initial post, readers are directed to the CCI interview with CEO Darrell Piercy which highlights the 1.4 mill.earnings figure. In that same interview, the 10% earnings figure of 1.4 million is used to project future earnings of 3.5 million on Mr. Piercy's forecast of 35 million in future sales.
The subsequent posts to the thread from May 1st forward reveals that the common understanding of those posting to the board was that the 10% figure of the 1.4 million was still a current number.
Please review the following posts: (#18 by Gambler on 5/5) emphasizing the 10% earnings projection of 3.5 million on 35 million of sales which are by extension derived from the 1.4 million earnings figure (#73 by Bill Monahan 5/6) directing readers to the CCI interview with Darrell Piercy which highlights the 10% 1.4 million figure (post #909 by Nigel 6/1) again highlighting the CCI interview and the erroneous numbers therein posted as being the current data to base one's investment decisions upon.
If others were fully cognizant of the lowered earnings figure of 800k it is surprising that no posts were made by tsig Bulls in the know to correct the obvious misunderstanding that was being portrayed and communicated to readers of the thread and to warn of the erroneous numbers posted on the tsig website in the interview with the CCI CEO.
Since we have recently been informed that Mr. Gordon does read the SI thread it should be very obvious to himself that there has been a common misconception about the CCI 1997 earnings numbers. It should also be very obvious to Mr. Gordon that the central reason for this misconception is the erroneous information posted on the tsig website and yet Mr. Gordon has taken no action to update this obvious misrepresentation by at least posting a paragraph at the beginning of the interview updating and correcting erroneous earnings numbers with the latest information that has been available since at least April 30th.
The foregoing documents the folly of blindly accepting Mr. Gordon's statements without putting them to the test to verify accuracy. It also speaks as a confirmation in the course of wisdom for those who have done so in expressing their skepticism on this thread.
Based on the skeptical approach I will next address Mr. Gordons' answers to the questions that Gambler posted to his 6/30 CC with Mr. Gordon.
I will begin with the #1 question: Mr. Gordon's sale of his 6,480,000 shares.
Best regards, JAB |
