THAT PATCH IS A LOON. HE STILL POSTS THAT ROBERT SIMPSON OF GLOBAL LINKS FAME ACTUALLY BOUGHT 100% OF THE FLOAT.
AMAZING THAT THEY GOT THAT SENATOR BENNETT FROM UTAH TO ACTUALLY TO ASK DONALDSON ABOUT THE GLOBAL LINKS FRAUD AND THE BIG LIE.
THAT SENATOR MUST HAVE WONDERED WHY DONALDSON WAS CHUCKLING SO MUCH WHEN HE ASKED HIM ABOUT ROBERT SIMPSON THE DIPLOMA MILL GUY OWNING 100% OF THE FLOAT OF A STOCKFRAUD
N THE MONEY: Global Links As 'Get Shorty' Poster-Child
1 April 2005
Dow Jones News Service
English
(c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
By Carol S. REMOND
A Dow Jones Newswires Column
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)---You've probably never heard of Global Links Corp. (GLKCE), a tiny real estate developer in Las Vegas.
But this little over-the-counter bulletin board company got some big attention recently when a powerful member of the Senate banking committee referred to the company as a potential victim of abusive short selling.
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, used the Global Links example to harangue Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson about the inefficacy of Regulation SHO, a new short selling rule put in place earlier this year.
A close look at Global Links, however, makes one wonder why the senator held it up as a poster-child for abusive short selling. There are questions about the accuracy of the story used by Sen. Bennett to show how Global Links was victimized by short sellers. And the company has hardly been a financial success over the past decade or so.
Sen. Bennett referred to a story published by an online service called FinancialWire to point out alleged naked shorting abuses. The article told the story of Robert SIMPSON, an investor who says he bought 100% of Global Links' common stock in early February in the open market, two days after that company had reduced its shares outstanding to about 1.1 million shares from more than 350 millions shares.
"There were no shares available to be borrowed and yet in two days there were over 50 million shares traded," Sen. Bennett told Chairman Donaldson during the exchange.
Short sellers typically borrow shares to sell them, hoping that they will be able to replace them with shares bought at a lower price later. Trading without a borrowing agreement is called naked short selling. It's illegal for most investors, but brokerage firms that make a market in stocks can legally sell short without a borrow to instill liquidity in the market.
The article used by Sen. Bennett was supposed to show how although one investor bought all the shares outstanding of one company and took delivery of them, phantom shares continued trading in the market.
But as it turns out, SIMPSON, the chief executive officer of a small Michigan company called Zann Corp. (ZANC), says he never took delivery of his Global Links shares. That means that stock was still available in the financial system for others to trade. Trades typically settle three days after purchase.
Zann and Global Links are very typical of the small companies that have for months now been complaining that their stock prices are being hurt by naked short selling. The two companies have little sales, big debts, and make generous use of stock issuance to pay for services that they can't otherwise afford. Both companies have gone through a number of corporate reincarnations. Global Links' most recent business development includes the acquisition of a handful of properties from Utah-based Diversified Financial Resources Corp. (DFLR), a company under Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for its participation in an offshore boiler room scheme.
Frank Dobrucki, Global Links' chief executive officer and major shareholder, said that SIMPSON never contacted him. "He is just trying to get himself at the front of this (naked short selling) battle," Dobrucki said, later calling SIMPSON's purchase "make believe".
Although seemingly unrelated, Global Links and SIMPSON share a corporate lawyer, Norman Reynolds, and an investment banking adviser, Alexander & Wade Inc.
SIMPSON believes that his company has been the target of naked shorting. He said he knew nothing about Global Links when he decided to purchase all of its oustanding shares after noticing heavy trading volume in the stock. SIMPSON said he was trying to make a point about the plight of Zann and other companies victimized by illegal short selling. SIMPSON also said he knew nothing about FinancialWire or its distributor, Investrend Communications Inc., and that he had no idea why the service wrote about his purchase. Investrend publishes research about its corporate clients.
FinancialWire didn't identify SIMPSON as CEO of Zann in its March 4th article. FinancialWire also failed to note that ATNG Inc., the previous corporate incarnation of Zann, became one of Investrend's corporate clients in July 2002. Investrend articles about ATNG or Zann indicate that coverage has been suspended because the company failed to provide access to Investrend's analyst. It's unclear when the suspension occurred. According to Zann's website, SIMPSON agreed to take over ATNG operations in October 2002.
As it turns out, SIMPSON wasn't the only investor eager to buy up shares of Global Links and try to make a point about alleged naked short selling.
SEC filings show that Paul Floto, an Oregon investor, bought 180,000 shares of Global Links stock in early March. Floto said in filing that he bought what he thought was 15.5% of Global Links' outstanding shares, "to point out the complete failure of government and exchange regulatory bodies to maintain honest, orderly markets, and the corrupt actions of market makers and securities clearing bodies, which facilitate the sale of unissued, unregistered, counterfeit, or simply nonexistent securities."
Like SIMPSON, Floto's plan was to show how millions of non-existent shares are traded every day when brokers fail to borrow shares before selling short shares.
Unfortunetly, likely unknown to Floto, Global Links had already issued 3 million shares by the first week of March, bringing its shares outstanding to about 4 million. That means that it's likely that Floto never held the 15.5% of Global Links that he claimed in his March 9 ownership filing with the SEC.
-By Carol S. REMOND; Dow Jones Newswires; 201 938 2074; carol.REMOND@dowjones.com
IN THE MONEY: 'Get Shorty's' Path From Utah To Washington
1 April 2005
Dow Jones News Service
English
(c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
By Carol S. REMOND
A Dow Jones Newswires Column
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--A senior U.S. senator's surprising interest in an arcane campaign against short selling followed hefty donations to Republican causes by one of the issue's key champions.
Patrick Byrne, a prominent corporate leader in the home state of Senator Robert BENNETT, R-Utah, last year donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a political advocacy group that financed advertisements against Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. Byrne was also the largest private donor to Utah Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. He also gave to Swift Boat Vets and POWS for Truth, a group that financed anti-John Kerry ads.
Byrne, president and chairman of online retailer Overstock.com (OSTK), has become a crusader and benefactor for conspiracy buffs who believe that Wall Street firms are cheating investors out of millions of dollars by illegally shorting stocks. The practice is known as "naked short selling."
In recent months, Byrne himself has done battle with short sellers and those critical of Overstock.com. In February, Byrne helped write and finance a full-page ad in The Washington Post to raise awareness about naked short selling and its potential impact on President George Bush's plan to privatize social security. The ad was sponsored by the National Coalition Against Naked Shorting or NCANS, a group endorsed by Byrne.
Short sellers typically borrow shares to sell them, hoping that they will be able to replace them with shares bought at a lower price later. Trading without a borrowing agreement is called naked short selling. It's illegal for most investors, but legal for firms that make markets in stocks by bringing liquidity to the market.
The campaign against naked short selling got a major boost earlier this month when Sen. BENNETT publicly confronted Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson about purported short selling abuses and told him that a new regulation known as Reg SHO has failed to correct the problem.
"You put out a new rule in January to deal with naked short selling. And nearly as I can tell from my constituents who feel victimized by this, it's not working," BENNETT told Donaldson during a Senate Banking Committee hearing. The senator from Utah, chief deputy majority whip and a respected Republican leader in Washington, cut short Donaldson when he tried to explain how Reg SHO works. BENNETT demanded to be briefed on the issue. A meeting is planned for early April.
Sen. BENNETT's support for the anti-naked shorting crusade was surprising because the issue has been centered around tiny companies many of them shells without real businesses and minimal revenues.
Especially puzzling was Sen. BENNETT's choice of an example to illustrate trading abuses - Global Links Corp. (GLKCE) and Robert Simpson, an investor who says he tried to buy all of the company's shares.
Global Links, a development stage company that has generated but $1.6 million in revenue from 1993 through last September, had just $45,000 in cash as of last September, according to an SEC filing. It finances its tiny business by selling stock, something illustrated in other SEC filings. For example, as of last March, Global Links had 68 million shares outstanding. Three months later, that number rose to 107 million. Then as of late September last year, just six months later, it grew to 147 million.
It's most recent corporate development includes the acquisition of a small number of properties from Utah-based Diversified Financial Resources Corp. (DFLR), a company under SEC investigation for its participation in an offshore boiler room scheme.
Although brief, the exchange between Sen. BENNETT and SEC Chairman Donaldson has become a rallying point for those who accuse brokerage firms and hedge funds of manipulating stock prices through illegal short selling.
Recently, BENNETT's comments were featured in an infomercial about the evils of naked short selling produced by NCANS. Overstock.com's Byrne is also featured in the promotional piece, although he now claims that his company has not been a victim of naked short selling. Another person featured in the infomercial is Georgetown University professor James Angel who now says that his comments were taken out of context.
Responding to emailed questions, a spokeswoman for Sen. BENNETT said that Byrne was one of the constituents that complained to the senator about short selling abuses. She declined to identify others. She said one constituent gave Sen. BENNETT a story about Global Links and the alleged trading abuses. She declined to identify that constituent. The spokeswoman said that Byrne's donations to Republican causes didn't influence Sen. BENNETT's decision to take on naked shorting.
Byrne acknowledged he had a brief conversation with one of BENNETT's staffers although he said in a later e-mail the conversation was not "substantive." In the e-mail, he said he had extensive conversations on the subject with staffers of other committee members. He said he did "open lines of communication between the Senator's office and folks in the naked shorting movement."
Despite Sen. BENNETT's strong words to Donaldson during the March 9 public hearing, the spokeswoman said in an e-mail that in fact "Senator BENNETT doesn't know whether all the allegations of short selling by NCANS and others are accurate or whether claims that the new SEC regulation isn't working (are accurate)- for this reason he's pleased Chairman Donaldson has agreed to come brief him on how the SEC is enforcing the new regulation and what it has seen since it has been in effect."
It's likely that Byrne's large political donations last year bought him lots of goodwill from Utah Republican leaders.
Federal Election Commission records show that Byrne and his father, legendary insurance man Jack Byrne, each donated $500,000 to a political advocacy group named Save American Medicine on Oct. 6, 2004. FEC records show that the 527 group was registered by Evan Twede on Oct. 1 "to support reform of medical liability laws." Jack Byrne is Overstock.com's vice chairman.
Expenditures records filed with the FEC show that $858,650 of the million donated by the Byrnes was spent airing anti-Edwards ads attacking his record as a personal injury lawyer in his home state of North Carolina. One ad can still be seen at www.saveamericanmedicine.com .
FEC records show Chuck Warren of Bully Pulpit Inc. was the only other person who donated to that 527 group, giving $200 on Oct. 4. Utah electoral records show that Bully Pulpit was a campaign consultant for gubernatorial hopeful Huntsman in 2003. Huntsman was elected last year. Warren is a long-time Republican staffer who in the late 1990s was chief of staff for then congressman Chris Cannon, R-Utah.
Meanwhile, Twede, the man who registered the 527 group, is also known as a Salt Lake GOP operative. According to news articles, Twede designed a bold marketing campaign that helped BENNETT win his fist Senate seat in 1992. Stan de Waal, another GOP insider, is Save American Medicine's treasurer.
Sen. BENNETT's spokeswoman said that BENNETT has no relationship to the 527 group gifted by the Byrnes.
FEC records show that in the past Byrne gave to both Republican and Democratic candidates. But his political contributions took a sharp turn to the right in 2004. And in an e-mail, Byrne said he contributed to a number of Democrats in 2004.
He raised political eyebrows in Utah last year when he donated $75,000 to Huntsman's campaign, the largest contribution outside the Huntsman family.
Byrne also contributed $2,500 to Swift Boat Vets and POW's for Truth, a conservative group behind two of last year campaign's most memorable attacks on Sen. Kerry during his unsuccessful presidential bid.
Byrne doesn't believe that his political contributions influenced Sen. BENNETT's decision to bring the naked short selling issue to the Senate Banking Committee. In an e-mail, Byrne said he believes he is one of the largest donors to the Utah Democratic party.
Meanwhile with Overstock.com stock quadrupling over the last two years, it is unclear why Byrne is so preoccupied with short sellers, those investors who bet that the price of a stock will go down.
For the last few months, Byrne has been voraciously posting about the topic on the NCANS Website and on Overstock.com's online message board. In one of the messages on his company Website, posting under the alias Hannibal, Byrne describes his "fight with Wall Street criminals." In another online message, Byrne discusses the "financial media and the criminals", musing whether hedge funds have journalists on the take.
-By Carol S. REMOND; Dow Jones Newswires; 201 938 2074; carol.REMOND@dowjones.com [ 04-01-05 1645ET ] |
