To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (463 ) 3/4/2002 5:57:29 PM From: StockDung Respond to of 609 ttre's new ir company represented purfumia. P U The Bill Gates Sleaze Factor Andrew Evans was recently profiled in a very unflattering light by Red Herring. The story is too convoluted to go into great detail here. However, it involves a number of different public Internet companies (Zero.net, Envision, Perfumania and Interosa), two private off shore investment companies, and their convoluted business relationships with each other. Perfumania was the primary holding of his Internet incubator firm Zero.net. In December of 1999, he was soliciting investment funds on behalf of Zero from both a large public company (Omnicom) and a well known venture capital firm (Olympic Private Ventures). Naturally, the attractiveness of any deal to these firms was highly correlated with Perfumania's stock price. It just *happened* that at this time, two off shore investment companies that he was associated with, owned 86% of the *public float* of Perfumania. I suppose it wouldn't surprise you to learn that in November of 2000, Olympic (which had invested with Mr. Evans), filed a suit claiming that he had manipulated Perfumania's stock price. You also probably wouldn't be shocked to learn that there have been numerous complaints filed with the SEC against him. What is surprising is the lack of due diligence that Omnicom and Olympic failed to perform. Mr. Evans has an easily accessible criminal record for bank fraud. His case is not unique in that respect. Pixelon's story easily tops this because its CEO was actually *on the lam from the law*. However, there is something about this story that I find incredibly interesting. Namely, Mr. Evans and his wife are apparently good friends with Bill Gates. Mr. Gates served on the board of one of their investment firms in the mid eighties. He's visited them in prison. When they were released, he even gave them *power of attorney over his personal investments*. "... when word got out in 1993 that convicted felons were handling his finances, Mr. Gates distanced himself from the couple. According to Mr. Evan's close associates, Mr. Gates, who is godfather to the Evan's three children, still maintains a personal and business relationship with his former money managers". Red Herring, July 15, 2001, page 65, Justin Hibbard. redherring.com The above was originally published in the July 5, 2001 issue of Wall Street Harvest.