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Microcap & Penny Stocks : ABTX - Agribiotech -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Big Dog who wrote (7162)	1/24/1999 12:29:00 PM
From: Joe Bilich	Respond to of 8359

>> However, Dr. Thomas during December 1998 and January 1999, has improved the company's debt situation.<< Yes, he did. There were a couple equity placements made between the time that JT said ABTX was going to make a deal and the time he said no dice. Who knows what was said privately, but the PUBLIC environment cultivated by the company gave the impression that ABTX was close to a deal which would increase the share price and provide a short term reward for those taking down the financings. Made it to me almost look like equity "bridge financing", if that is possible. Pay off debt by placing some shares with "friendlies" before a buy-in. I suspect that the buyers of those deals are pretty pissed off right now. And maybe not so "Friendly" any more. While I think that the existing suits against ABTX are frivolous, if JT made the same kind of assurances privately to these buyers (or more?) then the next round of suits won't be frivolous.

To: Big Dog who wrote (7162)	1/25/1999 12:30:00 PM
From: Big Dog	Respond to of 8359

AgriBioTech Shares Plunge After Failed 3-Month Hunt for Buyer Las Vegas, Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- AgriBioTech Inc. fell as much as 26 percent after the turf and forage seed company said its three-month hunt for a buyer ended in failure. The shares fell 3 3/16 to 8 7/8 in morning trading, the lowest intraday price since 7 3/4 on Oct. 8. The unprofitable Las Vegas-based company said late Friday it dropped its effort to find a buyer after a failed auction by Merrill Lynch & Co. No bids were received by the Jan. 15 deadline, according to people familiar with the situation. On Nov. 10, Chief Executive Johnny Thomas predicted the ''bidding process'' would produce ''a new share valuation likely to be in the $25 to $50 per share price expectation range of analysts who are current on ABT fundamentals'' by the end of January. His prediction, first posted on the company's web site, has been repeated in regulatory filings as recently as Friday afternoon. Thomas wasn't immediately available for comment. His price prediction attracted the attention of small investors, who posted more than 10,000 messages on the company's Yahoo! bulletin board since Merrill was hired in October. While AgriBioTech primed investors to expect a buyout, it sold $40 million of stock, convertible debt and warrants to institutional investors. ''The toxic converts which were issued earlier this month are normally the sign of a company in very desperate financial condition,'' Timothy Ramey, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, wrote in a note to investors today. Deutsche Bank was hired to assist Merrill in November. While it tried to sell itself, the company's financial condition deteriorated. Production costs and interest expense ran higher than expected. Recently, it ran short of cash. Two weeks ago, AgriBioTech revealed it was issuing stock to pay some bills. It gave 22,000 shares of stock to its securities law firm, Snow Becker Krauss P.C. to settle a $367,125 legal bill, and used 37,913 shares to pay $500,000 owed to Budd Group, a landscaping, security and janitorial service company owned by one of its directors. AgriBioTech shares were cut to ''market perform'' from ''buy'' at Stephens Inc. and to ''buy'' from ''strong buy'' at Piper Jaffray Inc.