To: Jon C who wrote (1428 ) 6/22/1999 5:58:00 PM From: Jeffrey D Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 3519
Jon, here is a little Meteor Technology history for you. From Investors Chronical. Any familiar names in it besides Wettreich? Any names you can link to Firescrest/X-Stream? Thanks, Jeff << -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- News: Meteor Technology - Broker issue for tiddler -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AS Aim-quoted Meteor Technology seeks to recruit its fourth nominated adviser in 12 months, it has emerged that one issue between the loss- making technology company and its professional advisers was a plan to expand into financial services. Earlier this year, Meteor's chairman, Dan Wettreich, proposed that Meteor acquire Alexander Mark Securities, a firm he had created only months earlier from Aim shell Silkbarn and broking firm Robert Fraser. Mr Wettreich and companies associated with him own around 60 per cent of Meteor, which must now find a new adviser within 30 days to avoid being thrown off Aim. When Mr Wettreich took control of Meteor in 1996 its adviser was Gerrard Vivian Gray. Last October that role was taken over by English Trust as nominated adviser and Teather & Greenwood as nominated broker. They were dropped in the summer to be replaced by Butterfield Securities, which announced last month that it would resign on 1 December. Two independent Meteor directors have resigned in recent weeks, including lawyer Stuart Holman who was only appointed in May. Meteor operates a small payphone business and is attempting to market a new software product enabling low-cost long distance telephone calls to be made via PCs connected to the internet. Last month it announced losses of pounds 322,000 and, after write-downs of asset values, net assets of only pounds 92,000. However, this result rested on a favourable assessment of Meteor's investments. Under a harsher light, the loss would have been pounds 1.2m. Meteor has been a disastrous investment for Mr Wettreich. Although much of his shareholding derives from transfers of businesses into Meteor from his US company, Camelot, outsiders estimate that he has invested at least pounds 1.5m of cash in Meteor. The shares stand at a fraction of his buying price. Copyright © 1997 Pearson Professional Ltd Copyright © 1997 Responsive Database Services, Inc. >>