Frank, next phone get one with a speaker.
Today's Grass Valley Union
Mine company president wants to focus on future
By John Seelmeyer - Mon, Dec 14, 1998
The president of Brush Creek Mining Development Corp. today urged shareholders to stop complaining and focus
instead on the company's potential.
Larry Stockett, president of the Grass Valley-based company for nearly a month, said he's been surprised at
shareholders' negative reaction to his plans for the company, and he urged them to stop selling the stock and
bad-mouthing the company on Internet bulletin boards.
"Many of you have not responded in the way I thought you would," Stockett said in a conference call with shareholders.
"I'm surprised at the negativity on the Internet."
Shareholders, he said, have been especially unhappy with a plan for a reverse stock split - a plan in which they would
receive one new share of stock for every 10 shares they currently hold.
Stockett said the reverse stock split is necessary to create a stock trading at $5 or more a share. That price will attract
a better class of investors, he said. More importantly for the short term, he said, NASDAQ will boot Brush Creek from its
automated market system unless the company can keep its share price above $1.
Without NASDAQ listing, Brush Creek won't be able to complete its proposed acquisitions of U.S. Cement and
McLaughlin Engineering, two companies in the cement industry. And Stockett says buying those companies is crucial to
his plan to revitalize Brush Creek.
He told shareholders he believes Brush Creek will become a major player in the cement industry if it can acquire the two
companies, and the value of the company's stock will reflect that change.
"We're going to be a major player in the cement industry," he said, predicting that the company's stock "easily" could be
worth $100 a share. The stock this morning traded for 31 cents a share - a figure that would be about $3.12 if the
proposed reverse stock split were approved.
Responding to critics, Stockett said, "If you don't believe me, you don't have any alternative but to sell your stock." He
said shareholders should be using the Internet to encourage others to buy the stock.
Brush Creek, which has operated gold mines in the northern Sierra, had announced intentions to file for bankruptcy
protection, had failed to file required reports with the federal Security and Exchange Commission, was out of cash and
had laid off all its staff when Stockett became president on Nov. 15. |
