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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (2658)	7/16/1999 5:37:00 PM
From: RockyBalboa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

This post sums it up nicely. messages.yahoo.com Look at the financials by: hair_lip 35 of 63 Very interesting story, and I enjoy the "debate" going on. Taking a look at the finacials on edgar showed the following after 1st quarter. Quarterly/Annualized Written premium $44.2MM/176.8MM Revenues $19.6MM/78.4MM Net Income $1.4MM/5.6MM Earnings/Share $0.06/0.24 Total Assets $179.4MM Cash from operations (10.1)MM All of this for a company that until today had a market cap of almost $1.4 billion. Directors and officers own over 28% of the stock with Marc Sparks owning 2,365,000 or 9.7% and Jeffrey Nelson 1,198,000 or 4.9%. Also, two investors (VCs or Angels?) L. Feldman and M. Belzberg own 2,055,555 and 822,222 respectively. In addition to having stock of almost $100MM, Mr. Sparks made $510,000 salary. Mr. Nelson with almost $50MM in stock made $465,000. The company also leases its facilities from Sparks and Nelson. It seems that Unistar, after doing a reverse IPO, bought two companies USFHC and IFHC from Sparks and Nelson. At least $84.1MM in goodwill appears to be carried on the books from the acquisitions. Finally, since 8/26/97, the company has been operating under regulatory administrative oversight of the Texas Department of Insurance. Here's the 10Q edgar-online.com and here's the 8K edgar-online.com <<<<<<<<<<<<<

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (2658)	7/16/1999 6:55:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 19428

UAI blames the mean ol' shorties, says the company's in great shape and that the stock ran up lately due to institutional buying and not "unethical" promoting. :-) They're also going to find out who those mean ol' shorties are, too. =============== Friday July 16, 2:28 pm Eastern Time Unistar CEO blames short sellers for stock drop NEW YORK, July 16 (Reuters) - Unistar Financial Service Corp. (AMEX:UAI - news), a newly public company that sells car and renter's insurance, on Friday blamed short sellers, or investors who bet on a stock's decline, for causing a sudden drop in its stock price this week. ''We've got a lot of short sellers out there, it's disappointing to see such a malicious attack,'' Unistar's chief executive, Marc Sparks, told Reuters. ''Fundamentally, the company is in great shape.'' The stock of the Dallas-based company, which already lost about one-third of its value this week, dropped an additional $4 to $37 on Friday morning until the American Stock Exchange (Amex) halted trading in the shares. The exchange already halted trading on Thursday, prompting the company to issue a statement that its finances were in good shape. Investors who anticipate a decline in a certain stock can instruct their broker to sell the stock short and profit when they buy back the stock at a lower price than they sold it for. A steady stream of selling orders can depress a stock's price, especially if there are few shares available for trading. Unistar went public less than a year ago and in May moved its stock to the (Amex) from the bulletin board. The company has around 24 million shares outstanding, but just 900,000 shares, or 4 percent, are available for trading, Sparks said. This so-called small public float can lead to big price swings in the stock. Unistar's stock price shot up more than 50 percent in the two months since its Amex listing. The rise was caused by buy orders from big money managers, who are sometimes prohibited from investing in bulletin board stocks, according to Sparks. Sparks denied allegations posted by anonymous people on financial Web sites that the company may have hired an investor relations firm to pay brokers to promote the stock, a questionable practice that bulletin board companies sometimes pursue to increase their stock price. ''That's unethical as far as I am concerned,'' Sparks said. Unistar has hired an agency to find out who the short sellers are and to trace the people behind the online messages, Sparks said, adding he would ''bet'' that it's a competitor spreading the rumors.