Who is Janice Shell?
And why would biz wire (what's that?) be suing her?
Actually, I think it would be interesting to pursue this from a more serious tack - let's see what a bunch of amateurs could do - sorta like an investment club, except all the assets are in one corporation.
In fact, it might be organized as an investment club, and the club could hold the shares on behalf of members. The club then manages floating the shares back out onto the market in a controlled manner. (Rather than having me and Brady and PT and whoever else all each getting large blocks of shares, and then willy-nilly selling on any pop or panic.) The club wouldn't sell more than 50%, so that it could keep control of the company.
The club research what to do with the shell, perhaps seeking worthy ventures to back, perhaps looking for a business for the company to get into from scratch. I say we go shopping in Silicon Valley, for worthy private ventures not willing to jump through the hoops that venture firms require.
Now, how does the company get any cash, without a lot of rigamarole, and having to find investors for a public or private offering? How about this: the club gets cash by selling up to 50% of the shares to the public, the problem then is to get the cash into the corporation. The corporation just does a private offering, and of course there is no need to find any investors, because the club has cash from the sale of shares into the market and will of course be willing to buy more shares in it's baby. (And will be set-up from the start with explicit intention to do so.) And with always 50% of the shares, there's no problem getting shareholder approval.
Of course, we could do the same thing without the club, but then there's the possibility that one or more of us would back-out on the private offerings, and just take the cash when selling shares. Having the club hold the shares and having it in the charter as to what to do with cash when shares are sold solves this problem.
I suppose this would more traditionally be done with a partnership holding the shares. (Like Netbank.) But having it be an investment club gives it an edge that gives an aura of honesty and guarantees at least some news coverage for the novel approach.
Now, who would want to buy the shares? Where is the public demand going to come from? I think that just a few press releases and seeding the story in the right media would generate tremendous interest in such a novel approach, assuming we are honest in our intentions, and that we can get that to show through. Heck, people throw their money away every day on BB stocks run by crooks - why not take a flyer on an honest group of inexperienced, bumbling amateurs with good intentions? Who is to say which is more likely to result in profits?
Is this crazy, or what? Legal? Who knows?
It looks like these shells may be cheap enough that we could each have a small enough investment to make sure that it's all in good fun and nobody is taking a big risk. Maybe we're talking about a couple of hundred bucks each. Maybe our couple of hundred bucks turns into millions, or maybe we get at least $200 in entertainment, riding around town in limos, and smoking cigars once a year... |
