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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NYBellBoy who wrote (35512)	5/10/1999 3:53:00 PM
From: Pluvia	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 122087

<----- SHORT SELL HITT 25% $20 Thanks to the guys that brought this idea forward... This is a real stinker IMO...

To: NYBellBoy who wrote (35512)	5/10/1999 4:04:00 PM
From: Wolff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

CYOE-->Here is the news story on "May 10th" when they go see the U.S. District Judge. News April 8, 16:01 Eastern Time Apr. 7 (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/KRTBN)--An $8 million settlement package has been proposed for investors in Diana Corp., the defunct Milwaukee company that took shareholders on a wild ride in the mid-1990s. Diana investors who sued, claiming the company's stock price was artificially manipulated, would receive about 27 cents in cash and a stock warrant for each share of Diana they owned if the proposed class action lawsuit settlement is approved next month. The class action was a combination of nine lawsuits against Diana, a company that moved to California in early 1997 to become part of Sattel Communications Corp. and is now known as Coyote Network Systems Inc. Members of the class are investors who purchased Diana stock between Dec. 6, 1994, and May 2, 1997, a period of dramatic share price swings. The settlement -- which totals $8 million in cash plus 2.25 million warrants to buy Coyote stock -- was proposed by attorneys representing the investors and agreed to by lawyers representing former Diana executives and other defendants. The defendants, in agreeing to the settlement, deny any wrongdoing. Milwaukee-area residents Richard Y. Fisher and Donald E. Runge founded Diana in 1966 as a credit card services business that transformed itself numerous times. In the mid-1990s, Fisher and Runge made millions from the sale of their Diana stock. In the suits, investors accused Diana Corp., its executives, Sattel and others of manipulating financial information, misleading them with false statements and misrepresentations regarding one of its products. They also claimed that Diana used classic stock market manipulation tactics to trick them into buying Diana shares. The suits alleged that Fisher and Runge gained between $10.8 million and $16.6 million from the sale of Diana stock while manipulating the market so that investors would drive its price even higher. Gary W. Kubek, the New York City attorney representing Fisher and Runge, declined to comment about the case. The proposed settlement has one New York speculator fuming because it does not include injunctions against James J. Fiedler and Tony Squeglia, two Coyote executives who were involved in Diana. Fiedler is a defendant in the class action. "We think that any settlement that does not involve a permanent injunction against Mr. Fiedler and Mr. Squeglia" is a bad settlement, said Manuel P. Asensio, president and chief executive officer of Asensio & Co. in New York City. Asensio says he profited handsomely from the bet he made that Diana shares would go down when they were at their intra-day peak of $120. He became a vocal critic of the company after making that bet. "This does nothing to retire them from the fraudulent stock promotion game," said Asensio, who contends that Fiedler and Squeglia have been involved in two other fraudulent stock promotions. No one returned a reporter's calls to Coyote's Westlake Village, Calif., offices Tuesday. Asensio also criticized the proposed use of warrants to reimburse shareholders. The warrants would give holders the right to purchase a corresponding share of common stock at $9 per share in the first year after the settlement, $10 in the second year and $11 in the third year, according to documents sent to Diana shareholders. Coyote stock closed Tuesday at $5.938, down 6.25 cents. However, a lawyer for the investors argued that the warrants improve the chances for an even larger settlement. "What we were really trying to do by negotiating for the warrants was to add additional value that wasn't going to be there," said Keith F. Park, a partner at Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP in San Diego, the lead counsel representing the investors. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are applying to get paid 30 percent of the $8 million in cash and 30 percent of the 2.25 million warrants. If the lawyers' fees are approved, investors would receive about 19 cents per share in cash. A hearing on the settlement will be held May 10 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Over the course of 30 years, Diana Corp. became involved in industries as varied as a wholesale food distribution business with its Farm House Foods Corp., retailing and telecommunications. By Kathleen Gallagher -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the World Wide Web at onwis.com (c) 1999, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. END!A$9?MW-SETTLEMENT