Rick, RK, and all,
Another interesting point to add regarding the preferred stock is that ATIS has tried to find a way to hopefully keep the investors from shorting the price down in the short-term in the hopes of converting at lower prices.....to quote "Under the terms of the Purchase Agreement and subject to certain conditions, the Company has the option to sell to the Investors in the first quarter of 1999 an additional 500 shares of Series B Preferred Stock for an aggregate purchase price of $25 million. Conditions to the Company's option include a requirement that the Company's Common Stock be trading at a price above $5.49 per share."
This, of course, means that the Prometheus group has the potential to get another deal for 25 million$ in the first qtr, the same as has already occurred for the same number of Preferred shares, but only if the company chooses to do so. This sounds like ATIS' way of saying that, imo, that they don't believe they'll have problems getting all moving again by the 2-3Q, but the first Q still has potential lethargy due to lack of new fundamental info, and they will not let the Investor group short the price down to ridiculous levels with excessive dilution and even consider giving them another investment option....meaning that if the Prometheus group really believes that ATIS is a good long-term investment, that it shouldn't really matter and that getting prices at recent levels or a little above should still be considered good deals. This would be my hope as to why this arrangement has occurred, but I sure hope no further preferred deals go through...I inherently distrust these things and see it as the main interfering factor in terms of shareholder potential for the moment, other than the parts we all would expect....ie fundamentals, such as do the products such as dermagraft work?. I wonder how seriously this second investment deal is being considered anyway.
Anyway, let's stop talking about the company and start talking about broken deals, dropping under 2, zooming to 11, and so on.....much more useful. ;)
Hope all have a happy and prosperous new year.
Marshall |
