This is from TheStreet.com and they have some more articles on the company's lack of a response and insiders filing to sell millions of shares.
Sorry if it is messed up but I am not going to go through and edit it.
Here it is:
Top Stories: Coyote's Mystery Sales
By Kevin Petrie
Staff Reporter
12/9/98 10:07 AM ET
Remember Diana Corp., the meat packer turned telecom
highflier whose stock hit 100 in 1996 and later tumbled off
the New York Stock Exchange? It's back from the dead,
but its biggest customer is MIA.
Diana's latest incarnation, Westlake Village, Calif.-based
telephone company Coyote Network (CYOE:Nasdaq),
claims it booked roughly 75% of its revenue last quarter, or
$11 million, from a company whose offices we can't find and
whose chairman we can't reach.
Just who exactly is Coyote? Look
no further than former Wall Street
phenomenon Diana. In its glory
days, Diana's stock raced from 12
1/2 in January to 100 in May
1996. But as expected sales and
earnings failed to materialize,
Diana's shares crumbled to about
5 in early 1997 and the NYSE delisted the stock.
After Diana's pop fizzled, top management sold off the meat
operations and changed the company's name last year to
Coyote Network. Just this past November, Coyote
rebounded to list on Nasdaq after languishing on the
over-the-counter Bulletin Board for nearly two years. The
stock has climbed as high as 16 3/4 from about 9 1/4 in the
past month, which gives it a peak market capitalization of
about $161 million. For its latest quarter, Coyote reported
$15 million in net sales, up from a measly $106,000 a year
earlier, according to Coyote's 10-Q documents.
In its latest quarter, one company, Crescent
Communications Inc., provided almost 75% of revenue.
Trouble is, TSC can't find Crescent Communications, which
Coyote claims is an international telecom-services
company, anywhere except on a piece of paper in Carson
City, Nev.
Crescent Communications has no listed address or phone
number, no active tax records in California and no business
license in Long Beach, Calif., where, according to Coyote,
Crescent is based. Coyote officials eventually provided a
phone number that they claimed belonged to Crescent
Communications, but that led only to a taped message at a
phone message service company in Southern California.
TSC repeatedly left messages for the company in the first
week of December. None have been returned.
Is this the case of "The Company Vanishes"?
In a Sept. 24 press release, Coyote boasted of its
three-year, $37 million pact with Crescent Communications.
Coyote said in the release it expected to ship $13 million in
network switches to Crescent Communications that month,
and to deliver another $15 million of gear by early 1999.
Coyote execs say they booked roughly $11 million of those
sales in the quarter ended Sept. 30. In fact, Coyote liked
Crescent Communications so much that it acquired 20% of
it for $1.3 million, for $400,000 in cash and the rest in the
form of a discount on the equipment sold, according to SEC
filings.
According to the Coyote press release, Crescent
Communications Chairman Gene Curcio was looking
"forward to a rewarding relationship with Coyote."
It all sounds boringly routine, except that Curcio's Crescent
Communications has proved almost impossible for TSC to
locate. Crescent Communications is not listed in the seven
California area codes nearest its supposed headquarters in
Long Beach. No Crescent Communications is listed in the
Hoover's Online directory of U.S. businesses.
Long Beach city officials can find no business licenses for
the company in their databases. California tax officials have
no record of an active Crescent Communications Inc. (A
news clipping search reveals a Crescent Communications in
Atlanta, but that company is in public relations and has no
links to Coyote, Curcio or telecommunications equipment.)
We looked in Delaware, but came up empty. On a hunch,
we tried Nevada and hit paydirt. Well, sort of. Crescent
Communications Inc. was incorporated in Nevada in January
1997. According to documents filed with the Nevada
secretary of state, Eugene Curcio is Crescent
Communications' president, secretary, treasurer and
director. The filing notes company headquarters as: One
World Trade Center, Long Beach, Calif.
Which is exactly where Coyote executives insist Crescent
is based.
A reporter from TheStreet.com drove to the 27-floor office
building at One World Trade Center to seek out Crescent
Communications.
No luck.
Crescent Communications is not listed on the computerized
directory in the octagonal marble-floored lobby. The name
does not ring any bells with the landlords, either. Officials
with the building manager, IDM Properties, have no
recollection of Crescent Communications. Leilua Anesi,
operations and leasing manager with American Office
Centers, has never heard of Crescent Communications. Her
firm leases executive suites on the eighth floor, where many
small outfits lease space month-to-month.
(Oddly, a different company called Crescent Technologies
operates on this hushed floor. Chief Administrative Officer
Dana Larson has never heard of Gene Curcio, his company
or Coyote Network. Larson says her venture, started in
August, intends to sell Internet services overseas -- a
similar business plan as that claimed for Crescent
Communications.)
How about Eugene Curcio, Crescent Communications'
chairman? It is almost like trying to locate Godot. A
telephone listing search throughout California reveals an EB
Curcio in Irvine, Calif., but he identifies himself as a
72-year-old retiree who has never heard of Crescent
Communications. "You've got the wrong Eugene Curcio," he
says.
Coyote CEO James Fiedler is not much help in proving that
Crescent Communications exists. "I haven't physically been
there myself," he says.
That is rather odd since his company owns 20% of
Crescent Communications. "We've done a fair amount of
due diligence" on Crescent Communications, Fiedler says.
Under more probing, Fiedler did provide TSC with a
telephone number to contact Eugene Curcio at Crescent
Communications. That number turned out to be not for a
Long Beach address but one in Hermosa Beach, about 12
to 15 miles away. On the first ring, a taped message is
played: "Hello, you've reached Crescent Communications.
We're sorry, all of our representatives are currently busy.
Please leave a message with your name and phone number
and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you."
TSC left numerous messages, but no one from Crescent
Communications called back.
That phone number is held by a telephone message service
company called South Bay Communications. Citing
company policy, manager Patricia Rhynsburger declined to
say whether South Bay does business with Crescent
Communications or Gene Curcio.
When presented TSC's findings, Coyote officials promised
to get back very soon.
So far, the silence is deafening. |
