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To: Suzanne Newsome who wrote (44509)2/2/2001 2:58:55 PM
From: TOPFUEL  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 44908
 
"Given the FACT that Gordon didn’t make any mistakes.." Gordon didn’t make any mistakes???? What was the MusicCard? What was the Hwang debacle? How many management teams left? What was the floorless debenture? What was the Visitors Services sham? What was a million dollars spent on Lifetime Learning? Gordon didn’t make any mistakes???

Suzanne you sure knew how to pump all those things listed above and thats a FACT



To: Suzanne Newsome who wrote (44509)2/2/2001 4:08:40 PM
From: ztect  Respond to of 44908
 
geeze Suzanne, why do you waste so much energy
on Gordon and his crony Can'twell.

Can'twell was Gordon's little pumper and dumper.

Now what did or didn't Gordon achieve?

He like many other a business man had a business
model that he couldn't make work. He couldn't
finance it privately so he went to the markets where
pumpers like Can'twell & Hastings got buyers. When Gordon's
initial plans fell through in regards to
generating revenue specifically with Signature,
Gordon got financing with very unfavorable terms,
and the self fulfilling dilutive prophecy became the
reality with which we're all familiar.

Press Releases to promote the prospects and potential
of a company during 1998, 1999, and the first few
months of 2000 sent buyers into a tizzy on almost
every tech company with prospects of riches. The
glimmer of a deal, or news that didn't mean anything
sent many a major, minor, real, and imagined company
"to the" proverbial "moon" or conversely down the toilet.

Thus Gordon and his pump and dump gang were hardly unique
by any means. In terms of stocks that really peaked
like nettaxi at $36 now at 22 cents, Gordon wasn't
even very good at creating price runs...if that was
his supposed desire.

No matter what Gordon tried, he didn't succeed.
Did he purposely fail? Can't say yes, can't say no.

There were "deals" made, but none were executed.
Again Gordon made the deals, but did he just not
know how to make them work?

Would Gordon be any better or worse than Jeff Bezos
had Gordon the same access to financial markets to run
up billion dollars in debt?

If Bezos, "Times Magazine- Man of the 1999 Year", ever
makes a profit will the interest rates on the
amassed debt ever allow that debt to be paid off?

If one spends $2 billion to make $340 mill is
that any better than someone who spends $6 mill
to make $120 thousand?

Who is in a better position to get back to fundamentals-
the company with $1.66 bill in debt or the company
that has $5.8 mill in debt?

The "new" economy sure has had a strange way of
assessing both value and blame, but in my opinion
the people who promoted the Amazons, Pet.coms,
Pricelines, ValueAmericas, Dr.Koops, Mvp.coms,
and too many others to imention are infinitely more
crooked than the penny players who either may have just
been failed inept business men like Gordon, or purposely
bi-polar traders/manipulators like Gordon &
Bernie's lap dog Can'twell..

Anyway, enough energy wasted on my part on this sordid
past....I'm going to wait for the following items
to transpire as they pertain to tigi.

1). Release of amended 8-k with audited financials
of Affinity through the first 3 quarters of 2000
due mid to late February

2). News regarding resolution, extension or reduction
of loan to LT

3). Release of 10-K due by end of March showing
Affinity's month of December revenues as part of
tigi's balance sheet.

4). Release of first quarter 10-q by mid May showing
combned revenues of the merged companies.

So I'm here to, at least, May 15th. Any news of
"deals" released prior to items 3 & 4 really
are meaningless to me until those deals generate
documented revenues and earnings on SEC filed
balance sheets. Again I reiterate that Roix should,
at least, defer any and all commissions no matter how major
or minor until AFTER there is a filing on record
demonstraing how hard he has been working making
"deals" that generate revenues that enhance shareholder's
share value.

The best hope is that Roix and team will transform
tigi into a company whose stock trades on
hard assets and earnings rather than emotionally
on the latest PR (public relations) and stories
,
to paraphrase on the article about Amazon below.

Talk about grotesque, read Bezos's attempted
severance conditions...buying silence as highlighted
in this article about Amazon.

z

"Amazon.com to trim unprofitable products"
Fri Feb 02 14:17:00 EST 2001

By Scott Hillis

SEATTLE, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc. , the
online retailer that sells everything from books to
hammers to barbeques, will stop selling unprofitable
items
in order to make good on its promise to climb
out of the red this year, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

The Seattle-based company, which is cutting 1,300 jobs, or
15 percent of its staff, also said it was backing down on a
"non-disparagement" clause in an agreement laid-off workers
were told to sign in order to collect a larger severance
package.


In a company-wide memo first reported by the Wall Street
Journal, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Amazon would cut back
on selling unprofitable products, company spokeswoman Patty
Smith confirmed.

"Jeff did send out this e-mail to the company about plans
for the future and how we get to profitability and all those
good things," Smith said.

"It's taking a more creative approach to selling items on
our site," Smith said. "It doesn't make sense for us to
sell, say, $2 items individually, but if we bundle those
items in bundles of 10, it makes more sense."

Bezos did not detail which products would be cut, but
analysts have criticized the company for expanding beyond
its core business of books, music and video -- items for
which it can turn a profit -- into bulkier goods that
are costly to stock and ship.

"It does seem like the company sells an awful lot, and
considering the environment we're in right now it's not
the most illogical thing to do to cut down on those items,"
said Adam Hamilton, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen,
a Seattle based brokerage.

Shares in Amazon fell $1-5/16, or 8.1 percent, to $14-15/16
on Friday, continuing a slide that began after it said in
its quarterly financial results on Tuesday that it would
turn a profit by the end of this year, but that sales
would fall sharply below previous estimates.

To help reach its goal of making money after years of
losses, Amazon said it would cut 15 percent of its staff,
largely from a customer service operation in Seattle and a
distribution center in Georgia.

But Amazon, which has grappled with labor issues in Seattle
as some workers there try to unionize, found itself embroiled
in controversy over a clause in the severance agreement that
would have barred laid-off workers from talking about the
company to the media and others.

Those who refused to sign would only collect two weeks
worth of severance pay, while those who did could get up
to 12 weeks and a $500 bonus.


The move sparked an outcry among workers and local union
organizers, and prompted front-page headlines in Seattle
newspapers.

Now Amazon has backed down on that issue, saying its
hourly employees won't have to agree to that clause,
although salaried workers might still have to.

"In retrospect, upon hearing from employees, they have
enough to worry about right now and we didn't want to
add to their concerns," Smith said.

"It was an easy change to make, and we heard their
feedback loud and clear," Smith said.

Analysts welcomed the move as smart public relations.

"I'm no expert on serverance contracts, but that seemed
kind of weird to me, to the extent that you were wondering
what are they trying to hide here," Hamilton said.
"With a stock that trades very emotionally on the
latest PR (public relations) and stories rather than
on hard assets and earnings
, I was glad to see that announcement."

Rtr 14:17 02-02-01



To: Suzanne Newsome who wrote (44509)2/3/2001 2:33:27 PM
From: ztect  Respond to of 44908
 
bb's bad? Try the Nasdaq........

Now I wonder if some of the financial
firms still holding paper and rating this
company as "neutral" are some of the
same original ones that underwrit the IPO?

hmmm......talk about crooks.

February 3, 2001
Critical Path Suspends 2 Executives and Starts Financial Inquiry

By CHRIS GAITHER


AN FRANCISCO, Feb. 2 — Two weeks after it shocked Wall Street
with dreary quarterly earnings, Critical Path, a once highflying
provider of corporate e-mail systems, announced today that it
had suspended two top executives and started an internal
investigation into its financial practices.

Its board formed a committee to investigate Critical Path's
methods of recognizing revenue after it "discovered a number
of transactions that put into question the company's financial
results," the company said in a statement. The board
put David Thatcher, the company president, and William Rinehart,
the vice president for worldwide sales,
on indefinite
administrative leave.

Saying it wanted more information from the company, Nasdaq
halted trading in Critical Path's stock before the exchange
officially opened, freezing the price at Thursday's
close of $10.06.

Earlier today before the Nasdaq opened, investors eager to
rid themselves of the stock had bid the price down 60 percent,
to $3.86. In after-hours trading, it dropped as low as $3.50.
Critical Path shares had traded as high as $119.50 in March.


The news of the internal investigation was the heaviest of
several recent blows. Many Wall Street analysts and investors
have accused Critical Path, which is based in San Francisco, o
f deliberately manipulating its books.

On Jan. 18, after Mr. Thatcher had repeatedly predicted the
company's first profitable quarter, Critical Path announced a
loss of $11.5 million, or 16 cents a share. Analysts had expected
a profit of a penny a share.


The company blamed a last-minute move by its auditor,
PricewaterhouseCoopers for the shortfall. Critical Path
executives told analysts that the auditors would not allow a
$7 million software licensing deal to count toward its revenue
that quarter. Instead, the revenue would have to be spread
out over several quarters.

Analysts today said the disallowed transaction involved software
acquired in Critical Path's $416 million purchase in August
of PeerLogic, a private company that made software for e-commerce
infrastructure. Analysts also said Critical Path had trouble that
quarter swallowing the costs of the PeerLogic acquisition,
which threw off the balance sheet even more.

The auditors' decision cost the company 12 percent of its
quarterly revenue, which it then reported at $52 million,
analysts were told.

Several investment companies downgraded Critical Path's
stock after the earnings announcement, but not substantially.
Most seemed willing to forgive the company for missing
its quarterly estimates, until today's announcement.


Critical Path said its quarterly earnings, which so deeply
disappointed Wall Street, may in fact be "materially misstated,"
the company said in its statement, warning that the
investigation had just begun.

"Companies miss all the time," said Bert Hochfeld, a managing
director at Josephthal & Company, an investment brokerage house
in New York. "I'm familiar with that. I'm not familiar with
being the victim of a con game."

Today, analysts with SG Cowen, Lehman Brothers and Goldman, Sachs
all lowered their ratings to neutral
on Critical Path. Robertson Stephens
decided that Critical Path's future was too uncertain to call and
cut its rating to "under review."

"With this news this quarter, it's going to take a
long time to trust these guys," said Raj Seth, a research analyst
with SG Cowen.

In the most vivid example of investors' disappointment,
Mr. Hochfeld lowered his rating from strong buy to sell.

"You have two choices," Mr. Hochfeld said. "You either believe
it was incredible incompetence, misfeasance or carelessness. Or, you
think - not to put too bold a face on it - that someone was making
up revenue."

A spokesman for Critical Path did not return several phone
calls seeking comment on today's news.

In the last year, Mr. Thatcher has filed documents with
the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell more than
70,000 shares, worth nearly $4.7 million. Mr. Rinehart
has filed to sell more than 100,000 shares worth more
than $6.8 million. David C. Hayden, a company founder and chairman,
has registered to sell 770,000 shares, worth an estimated $35 million.

Critical Path said it had hired PricewaterhouseCoopers and
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a law firm based in
Palo Alto, Calif., to help with the investigation.

Critical Path also dragged down some of its investor companies,
including the E*Trade Group
, which owns a portion of Critical Path.
E*Trade shares fell $1.50, nearly 11 percent, to $12.38.