Menu
16 Aug

Iroquois Capital’s Richard Abbe Sued For Fraudulent Takeover Scheme of XpresSPA

A co-founder of Iroquois Capital, Richard K. Abbe, is being accused of a fraudulent scheme to trick the founders of an airport spa business, XpresSpa, into a merger with a public Microcap company that resulted in a massive loss of their business investment. On August 6, a federal judge in New York allowed a securities fraud case to go forward against Abbe and other company executives. The lawsuit, which was filed in November 2017, has claims of undo influence, deception, and kickbacks used to effect a merger takeover by Form Holdings. Two claims of Securities violations consisting of 10(b)5 and Section 20 survived the defendants motion to dismiss.

Moreton and Marisol Binn, the XpresSpa founders, alleged two members of their board, Andrew Heyer of Mistral Equity Partners & Bruce Bernstein of Rockmore Capital Group, hid their financial ties and personal relationships to Form Holdings board member Richard Abbe and Salvatore Giardina along with its CEO Andrew Perlman before the 2016 merger. The complaint alleges by covering up their cozy relationship it allowed the XpresSpa directors to mislead the Binns on how much they would earn if the merger completed. And in turn the vote to approve the merger was a coordinated and premeditated effort by Bernstein, Abbe, Perlman and Giardina to deceive the Binns and other minority shareholders to take an all-stock, no cash, sale price to enrich themselves at the Plaintiffs’ expense.

The fraud claims surviving the motion to dismiss is a rare event in securities ligation for Microcap companies. That’s because most companies, including XpresSpa, sign joinder agreements that release all the parties from this type of litigation. Additionally, the investment funds like Iroquois or Barry Honig’s team of investing affiliates have typically bled dry the small company CEO’s stock barrel of cash by the time they have figured out they’d been deceived and can’t afford to file a lawsuit. But the Binn’s aren’t the kind of men to lay down to alleged market manipulators. With their ability to afford seasoned securities litigators like Rosanne Felicello and Michael Maloney of CKR Law LLP, it appears a compelling legal argument was made to blow through the general release of ligation and convince Judge Stanton to move the case forward. The defendants lawyers at Mintz Levin even tried intimidating tactics to scare the Binns into dropping the case by filing motions for sanctions against their attorneys for bringing the lawsuit in the first place. Attorney Francis Earley, of Mintz Levin, sent multiple letters to Attorney Felicello basically warning it doesn’t matter what you think happen the joinder agreement release doesn’t allow you to sue the defendants. But this month Judge Stanton said the defendants lawyers were wrong and the Binns could sue. The Judge wouldn’t even grant an oral argument to hear their motion to dismiss or sanction claims. Instead the judge ruled on the detailed information about the alleged fraud that was laid out in the briefs. Net Net I bet Richard Abbe, who I have previously reported on for his funds role in some questionable financing with MGT Capital, is starting to get a little worried about what is going to coming out in discovery.

The trouble started for the Binns when XpresSpa took a high interest senior secured loan from Rockmore Capital which is owned by the company’s director Bruce Bernstein. Besides securing anything in the company that had value against the loan there were also stringent covenants put in place that allowed Rockmore to force a default on the loan. Such as when a full audit didn’t arrive on the date Rockmore asked for it a default event occured that allowed Rockmore to add $500k of interest to the loan and scared off previous lenders, like BofA, from offering a credit facility at lower market rates. Putting the loan into default also put Bernstein in a control position over the company enabling him to significantly influence merger decisions.

Before the merger in August 2016 XpresSpa was having cash flow problems that lead to their inability to keep adding nail spas in airports and keep up with competitors. And a $6.5 million debt due in 2018 was a big thorn in their side. So when the idea of merging with a public company, that had been in the Patent troll business, and claimed to be worth $35.1 million came along it didn’t look so bad to the Binns. Especially given XpresSpa board member Bernstein made promises that once the merger was complete Form Holdings would get rid of their Rockmore debt and spend dollars on XpresSpa shops expansion into new airports, according to the lawsuit. The Binns were also led to believe the new publicly traded stock they would get was actually worth some money and would only go up in value because Form Holdings had real venture deals with companies that had valuable patents and cash flow.

But none of that happen. The complaint details how Richard Abbe, through a $12.5 convertible debt deal with Form Holdings via his investment fund Iroquois, was able to load up on equity in Form Holdings via a debt to stock conversion. Form Holdings use to be called Vringo Inc. On May 9 2016, before the merger, Abbe secured a seat on the board of Form Holdings. SEC filings for both companies claim Abbe and Bernstein were independent directors of their perspective companies. Yet both men had chock holds on XpresSpa and Form Holdings because they were also their substantial creditors.

After the merger completed the Binns say Form Holdings started to sell off, for very little money, the ventures tied to patents that they claimed had millions in value. One reason for this could be the patents value were really just speculation sold as a fabulous future cash flows but the Form Holdings directors knew what looks good on paper doesn’t turn into real cash.

The lawsuit also alleges “Members of the Controlling Group, acting through various investment vehicles such as
Rockmore and Iroquois, have coordinated similar changes in control or other coordinated
activities with respect to GeoResources, Inc., USA Technologies, Inc., and TapImmune, Inc. ”
[The control group consist of: Abbe, Perlman, Bernstein and Giardina.]

Now here is were things can get dicey for Abbe and Bernstein. In a brief responding to the defendants motion to dismiss we see the plaintiff allege that Abbe, directly or through another investment vehicle or another person he controls, put some of the money up for Rockmore to lend $6 million to XpresSpa. Remember Abbe doesn’t show up on this deal in public filings until there are merger talks. And the Binns will say they never heard of Richard Abbe until they were introduced to the idea of merging with Form Holdings. What has me extra curious is what kind of documents have been put under seal in this case. Is there some kind of proof the Plaintiff has discovered to prove Abbe’s involvement in RockMore?

I emailed Bruce Bernstein directly to see if he wanted to respond to this allegation but as of press time I had no response.

But that’s not all Team Abbe allegedly did in this deal.

Form Holdings CEO Perlman, already a member of the board of Form Holdings, arranges to have Bernstein also appointed to the Board of Form. Perlman and Bernstein then arrange to have Abbe appointed to the board of Form. At the same time, Bernstein used his position as a board member of XpresSpa to cause that company to enter into the onerous Rockmore Note. Bernstein, Perlman, and Abbe then offered Heyer a sweetheart deal if he would assist them to facilitate a merger of XpresSpa into Form .The lawsuit claims XpresSPA director Andrew Heyer would be given a ton of stock, valued at $2.31 per share at the time of transaction, if he voted for the merger and the Binns were never told he was going to get this stock if he approved the deal. As far as Bernstein goes, he also got the highest amount of compensation the new company bylaws would allow, was put on the audit committee, the compensation committee and made a member of the new company board. It’s this quid pro quo alleged in the complaint, which I would call a kickback, that allowed the Section 20 violations to be litigated. Claims that you’d hope the SEC would take notice of. Net-Net the Securities and Exchange Commission has laid out in previous enforcement cases that “You can’t bribe executives with stock to motive their vote and not tell other shareholders about it”.

Honestly this whole scenario reads like the Control Group’s corporate attorneys needed to go back and read the Securities and Exchange Act definition of an independent director and disclosure rules because it looks like their clients can’t really be relayed upon to tell the whole truth. And clearly the fact pattern was enough for Judge Stanton to say if this is true then that’s material information that was omitted and it’s worth going threw discovery to build a case for trial.

Recently signs of worry about what will come out in discovery appear to be showing up via the exodus of high level executives. On July 23rd attorney Felicello wrote Judge Stanton expressing serious concern that limited discovery was going to have to be allowed. This is before the decision on the motion to dismiss came down. Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, the CFO of Form Holdings who could also be a key witness to the facts underlying the lawsuit announces she is leaving the company. And so did the senior V.P. of legal and business affairs for XpresSpa Jason Charkow. The defendants lawyer wrote back the company has preserved all their communication and attorney Felicello was over reacting. But the fact of the matter is if these two bail to another country getting them to show up for a deposition subpoena might prove difficult.

Additionally the company just filed with the SEC announcing they have a $20 million goodwill write down. This is basically saying they don’t think the brand XpresSPA has held value and they might be bailing on the whole airport spa biz. Something they promised they’d grow at the time of the merger, according to the lawsuit.

The defendants have till the end of the month to answer the lawsuit. And then the interesting part begins as discovery happens and these alleged bad actors have to go through sworn depositions.

The Plaintiffs attorneys would not comment on the case. The defendants lawyer didn’t respond for comment. Some of the claims for unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of fiduciary duty were thrown out of the case. But the strongest claims of Section 10(b)5 and Section 20 violations remained. The company Form Holdings is also a defendant in the case. Remember if you prove fraud (Section 10b5) you get to ask a jury for triple damages.

Form Holdings changed its ticker symbol this year so you can now find them under ticker $XSPA.

Editors Note: This type of reporting is costly from researching volumes of legal documents and corporate records. Donations are important and very helpful to keep this publication going.This publication does not take donations from the subjects of a story.

10 Comments
9 Feb

Here it is: that MGT Capital SEC Subpoena

MGT Capital was subject to a subpoena sent by a lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission named Katherine Bromberg who is senior counsel in the New York office of the division of enforcement. The Subpoena demanded a response by September 28, 2016. MGT’s stock had been on a soar after it was announced the company was going to merge with John McAfee’s private security company. MGT CEO Rob Ladd was forced to announce the receipt of the subpoena by the exchange the company listed on, the NYSE, and the stock started a slide. The NYSE latter delisted the company without explaining in writing what their reasons were and did not allow the issuance of millions of new shares that the company approved in a board of directors vote.

The company is now on the OTC pink sheets waiting for the top-tier of the OTC markets to approve their listing. John McAfee was eventually made a director of the company but the merger of his security assets isn’t completed yet. The company website says “MGT Capital Investments, Inc. is in the process of acquiring a diverse portfolio of cyber security technologies. With cyber security industry pioneer, John McAfee, at its helm…”

In September MGT CEO, Rob Ladd, who signs all SEC filings, said in a press release the company didn’t think the SEC subpoena questions were focused on ‘the company’. Latter that month I was first to report on some of the people named in the SEC subpoena for the trade publication I report for Growth Capitalist. I reported Barry Honig, Michael Brauser and Josh Silverman’s hedge fund as being subjects of the subpoena questions. I had interviewed an executive at the company who said they thought “the focus of the SEC subpoena was about Barry Honig and the people he invested with.” I then wrote an opinion piece at teribuhl.com that Honig and friends were the subject of this subpoena.

Below is the subpoena for the reader to see and formulate their own opinions. This is the first time it is being made public. The name of the companies on page 7 are all owned by the names of the people on page 7-8. I was told by a person at the company all of these people invested with MGT Capital and you need a flow chart to show their interconnectedness. I have also researched other public filings and found these people have invested in the same equities in the past. Most of these people say they are passive investors and don’t know each other or don’t ‘invest together’. It’s my belief after a decade of proven investigative reporting and based on knowing how to read a SEC subpoena, along with interviews with people involved in the transaction and past investing transaction of Barry Honig, that the regulator is looking for evidence that these people traded as a group and therefore became beneficial owners of the stock. If you have beneficial ownership of a stock it affects when and how much you can sell your stock so investors, like the group here, often try to keep their public ownership of the stock below 10%. I think the regulator also wants to know if any of the investors, who except for Josh Silverman were not on the board of the company, had any influence in the McAfee merger or the paid stock promotion by Stock Beast. But the most interesting question is number 10.

All Documents and Communication concerning MGT’s acquisition of certain technology and assets of D-Vasive, as stated in MGT’s Form 8-K filed on May 9, 2016.

MGT had announced in its August proxy statement on page 23 that D-Vasive had had gotten a $850,000 bridge loan with convertible debt but didn’t disclose who did the bridge loan. John McAfee owns D-Vasive. I was told by a person at MGT that some of the names on the SEC subpoena had also done the bridge loan. If the merger had been approved, these people would have likely had D-Vasive stock warrants that would have became MGT stock and while the stock was flying high would have made a killing if they were able to sell. There are a lot of unanswered questions about that transaction and since D-Vasive is private they don’t have to answer them. Well unless a regulator asks. Like the timing of the warrants being issued, share registration, and who is holding the shares for the required 6 month period.

These people are sophisticated investors with expensive lawyers who help structure transactions designed to protect them form violating any securities laws like trading as a group without disclosing it. That type of SEC violation is hard to prove and I don’t know if the regulator will get the evidence to prove it but it is good to see them asking the questions. I want to hear from readers and market participants on what you think some of these SEC questions are trying to get at. Use the comment section or email me at teribuhl.com with your thoughts.

MGT says it has answered the SEC subpoena.

SEC Subpoena MGT Capital September 2016 by Teri Buhl on Scribd

UPDATE January 2018: On September 15, 2016, MGT Capital received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The subpoena requested documents and communications between MGT and Barry Honig. It also sought documents and communications between MGT and eight other individuals and eleven entities associated with the individuals.

I have not confirmed with the SEC that Barry Honig is in fact the subject or target of any SEC investigation. No person at the SEC has ever informed me that the SEC is investigating Mr. Honig. The SEC, when called for comment, told me that they do not comment on ongoing investigations.

3 Comments
8 Nov

Hacked By XwoLfTn

Hacked By XwoLfTn – Tunisian Hacker

UPDATE 2.7.17 6pm – Well it looks like someone hacked my publishing platform and took down a story in the last 24 hours. Luckily I have a paper copy of the story and will be re-reporting the original story within the week.

Hacking a business site and trying to steal my assets (the reporting) is a federal crime. I have reported it to the FBI office in NYC and have a security company looking into the IP addresses that entered the site.

I’m asking readers for $300 in donations to help pay for a private server to host this site and extra firewall protection. The reporting that was hacked was about Barry Honig and his deal lawyer’s financial interest in a stock transfer company. I need your help to keep the reporting visible for everyone to read. You can donate via the Paypal button on the top right of the homepage. Thanks in advance for your support.

4 Comments
23 Sep

MGT Capital Receives SEC Subpoena Seeking Information about Barry Honig and Eight Other Individuals

Microcap investor Barry C. Honig is a subject of an SEC subpoena related to his role in trading and investing in shares of MGT Capital ($MGT). MGT Capital is trying to complete a reverse merger with famed tech entrepreneur John McAfee. I am reporting exclusive news today for Growth Capitalist on what’s inside the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena MGT Capital announced was lobbed against them late last week.

News of the SEC formal demand for answers from the company delighted short sellers to the tune of a 40% drop in MGT’s stock. The company, currently run by CEO Robert Ladd, says it does not believe the SEC is targeting any of the company executives. But shareholders have expressed doubt this week given the lack of details the company was allowed to disclose about the regulatory investigation. On top that the NYSE, where MGT trades, announced it wouldn’t accept the new shares that are set to be issued in the reverse merger with John McAfee’s cyber security companies. The national stock exchange was kind of a jerk about it because they didn’t offer up a reason for the share issuance halt. Unfortunately, it’s a big clusterf–k of unknowns for the company and shareholders right now.

But one thing that my reporting makes very clear is the SEC wants to make sure Barry Honig isn’t’ doing anything shady (or out right illegal) with this company. According to insiders who saw the SEC subpoena, a large portion of the regulator’s questions are about Honig, his company GRQ Consultants, and people who invest with him. I can also confirm Honig has been calling SEC enforcement defense lawyers this week looking for representation. I first reported on Honig’s alleged illegal actions in my “Attorney Gregg Jaclin blew up his life and got busted for creating a shell factory scheme” story this Spring. The central theme of alleged bad behavior is Barry uses other people to run a company he is secretly controlling and indirectly pays stock pumpers to tout the company without disclosure.

You can see here in a DOJ plea deal made by one of Honig’s alleged puppet CEOs how Honig allegedly runs things behind the scene. This plea deal was first reported and unearthed by me in a story for Growth Capitalist in May.

The SEC has never been able to pin anything on Honig. We do see a FINRA action settled against him as a young trader in 2000 when he was working for a questionable PIPE financing firm called Ramius Capital (or Ramius Securities). On June 14, 2000 FINRA said Honig had acted as an affiliate trading with others and hid it by running the trade through two people instead of one.

Barry Charles Honig (CRD #2362713, Registered Representative, New York, New York) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent in which he was fined $25,000 and suspended from association with any NASD member in any capacity for 10 business days. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Honig consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that he sought to inappropriately coordinate a trade report to ACT with another market participant as two separate trades instead of one.

Honig has a SEC deal lawyer, Harvey Kesner at www.srff.com , who apparently has been able to keep the SEC at bay in tons of questionable pump and dump deals Honig invested in. I know from interviewing MGT’s executives and reviewing Honig’s financing transactions that he wasn’t a control person at MGT. CEO Rob Ladd, who used to run a hedge fund, put blockers in Barry’s finance deal that don’t allow him to own a certain percent of the company. What we don’t know is whether Barry teamed up with his favorite investing partner Michael Brauser and acted as an affiliate in trading MGT stock, which blew up to a 700% gain when news of a John McAfee merger was announced in May. Affiliate trading without disclosure is a big SEC no-no, which I explain my story today at www.growthcapitlist.com. Honig through his attorney did not return a request for comment.

For now it’s a wait and see as MGT scrambles to get the SEC to clarify to stock exchanges that the reverse merger deal is clean. And market participants sit on the side line to see if the SEC can get the goods to finally charge Barry Honig.

Clarification 9.23.16: Barry Honig is pulling out the big legal guns apparently worried about anyone reporting on what’s inside that SEC subpoena. As of 5:30pm I was contacted by a California attorney, Charles Harder (who repped Hulk Hogan), for Honig demanding to have the story taken down and to write an apology. I refused and stand by the sourcing in this story. I have spoken with people who have seen the subpoena again and clarified a sentence in the story that relates to a large portion of the SEC’s questions are centered on Barry Honig, his company and people he invest with. The original sentence said “90% of the SEC questions are about Barry Honig.” Additionally, Honig had two days to respond to questions about the subpoena before the story ran and refused to return a call and email for comment.

Update 10.7.16: One of the sentences in this story that Barry Honig has denied through his attorney Charles Harder is that he invest with Michael Brauser. Harder wrote in item #9 in his demand letter they sent me to get the story taken down:
“Implication that Mr. Honig “teamed up with his favorite investing partner Michael Brauser”. False; the two have not teamed up.”

I’d like to take the chance to remind readers of this 2012-2013 litigation against Barry Honig, Michael Brauser, and the Brauser Honig Frost Group for their role in Biozone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. It was filed by the company’s former founder Daniel Fisher. This is from Fisher’s amended complaint filed in Northern California District Court on 11.22.12 . Case number 3:12-cv-03716-WHA

“In January 2011, Plaintiff Fisher met with a group of investors, the Defendant representing
itself as Brauser Honig Frost Group (“BHFG”). Over the course of the following six months, this
group of investors misled Plaintiff Fisher through an investment scheme designed to divest
Plaintiff of all of the economic rights and goodwill he had built through his company over the
course of the previous 22 years.”

After Fisher beat their motion to dismiss and the case moved into discovery we see the case was settled with the defendants paying Daniel Fisher half a million dollars.

And that’s just one reason why I stand behind my reporting, opinion, and sourcing in this or any story of mine on Barry Honig!

UPDATE 11.4.16 : I have filed a letter to the federal judge in Honig’s lawsuit against me that you can read here. Honig used a process server who lied in an affidavit that he served me. I have video to prove he is lying. Additional, I informed the judge Honig asked MGT Capital CEO Rob Ladd to call me and set up a private ‘off books’ meeting. A move that is pretty much a no-no legal tactic given he sued me. His lawyers are supposed to be the ones to contact me. I obviously said no to the meeting and told Rob Ladd if Mr. Honig wants to speak to me and comment on any of my reporting he can call me through his attorneys – he has enough of them. This secret meeting tactic is something I have learned he has used in other litigation…it feels like the purpose is to try and figure out if I am going to give up names of my story sourcing.

I still need a pro bono lawyer to go up against Hulk Hogan’s attorney Charles Harder. Honig apparently tried to hire Harder (an expensive lawyer who has been in the news for his anti-journalism legal work) to scare me into stoping reporting and it didn’t work. If you are interested in this easy to win suit please email me at teribuhl@gmail.com. I’ve been told NY laws make it favorable to sue back for attorney fees in NY court and this is an easy case to win given my sourcing and the fact a lot of what I wrote here is opinion. Donations are also helpfully now in case I have to defend my self pro se.

UPDATE 1-10-17: I’ve secured a top first amendment lawyer to represent me pro-bono. Chuck Tobin of Holland & Knight filed last week in Manhattan Federal Court to be lead counsel. We have till February 10th to file a response to Honig’s claim. I would like to thank Holland & Knight for stepping up and defending the rights of a freelance journalist.

UPDATE 2-21-17:Barry Honig voluntarily withdrew his lawsuit against me on February 8th. This was two days before my attorneys were due to file our motion to dismiss and we were given no warning or notice of why the suit was being dropped. I thought the litigation was over but now it looks like Honig and his attorney Charles Harder were just making a move to judge shop because today I got a repeat retraction letter asking again to take down my reporting and apologize. It’s my expectation that team Honig will just refile their suit in another court or another state which means the bullying of this journalist for reporting on a matter of public concern continues.

UPDATE January 2018: On September 15, 2016, MGT Capital received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The subpoena requested documents and communications between MGT and Barry Honig. It also sought documents and communication between MGT and eight other individuals and eleven entities associated with the individuals.

I have not confirmed with the SEC that Barry Honig is in fact the subject or target of any SEC investigation. No person at the SEC has ever informed me that the SEC is investigating Mr. Honig. The SEC, when called for comment, told me that they do not comment on ongoing investigations.

14 Comments
7 Sep

Microcap Attorney Jaclin fights SEC fraud case by Blaming Everyone Else

A veteran microcap deal lawyer is trying to blame the young lawyers who worked for him for his alleged role in a Shell Factory scheme that spanned nearly a decade. I am reporting for Growth Capitalist today on the continued saga of the once well-respected attorney, Gregg Evan Jaclin, who plans to the fight the SEC enforcement action brought down on him in May. Jaclin has since been removed from his New Jersey-based law firm Szaferman, Lakind, Blumstein & Blader and some of the lead associates under his wing are now employed at a competitive New Jersey firm called Lucosky Brookman LLP.

According to the SEC, Jaclin worked with a L.A. based man, Imran Husain, to take fake start-up companies public so that they could later be sold for a ransom fee to real microcap companies that wanted to avoid the high cost of going public by doing what’s called a reverse merger. When in reality what was being filed with the SEC were shell companies (not real businesses) and Jaclin is now in trouble because he issued what the SEC considers ‘false opinion’ letters vouching that these deals were legit. This was done over and over from 2006 to at least 2013.

Jaclin’s motion to dismiss the SEC case is the first time we are hearing from the now disgraced lawyer who ironically admits in court documents that the companies in the SEC complaint were in fact shell companies. This is important because Jaclin signed documents that told the SEC when he first began filing the companies legal documents to be approved to go public that they were legitimate businesses with real CEOs and a diverse investor base. Having a diverse investor base is one of the parameters that allows stock in reverse merger deals to be unrestricted to trade right away. With the shell companies Jaclin allegedly co-created only a few people actually owned the stock and the public didn’t know this. This is bad because it allows the stock to be easily manipulated for pump and dumps which is exactly what happen with one of the shells in a company called YESdtc/PR Complete. The CEO of YESdtc plead guilty to criminal charges related to stock manipulation in 2014.

To top off the odd legal logic in his response Jaclin also says he didn’t really supervise his associates who drafted the SEC filing so of course the SEC can’t charge him. I call utter hogwash on the notion that the head of a law firm’s capital markets practice didn’t supervise the lawyers under him. And lets not forget that I was first to report on a secret plea deal his co-conspirator, Husain, made with the Dept. of Justice back in 2014 that says Jaclin was wide-eyed involved in the scheme. So much so that he helped Husain find a former SEC enforcement lawyer, Mark Hunter, to represent one of the puppet CEOs when the SEC started to investigate who was actually running these companies. And according to Husain coached him on how to lie to the SEC and destroy emails.

Husain has since plead guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy for basically interfering with an SEC investigation. Attorney Mark Hunter of NYC-based Hunter Taubman Fisher & Li has now agreed to be co-counsel in defending Jaclin in the SEC case.

During my reporting on this story I heard some industry players say Jaclin had been given office space in his former protegé’s law firm Lucosky Brookman LLP and that there could be fee-sharing going on. Joe Lucosky and Seth Brookman, the firm’s founders, said that’s absolutely not true. I was able to find Jaclin’s new office phone number through a person that was answering phones in Joe Lucosky’s New Jersey office though. A GPS search shows the new office number, 609-245-0732, is somewhere near the Princeton NJ area. I also learned after the SEC case was announced Jaclin, who hasn’t lost his law license, is still taking meetings with players in the microcap space and apparently trying to still practice emerging growth companies. It’s not clear what clients stuck with him but we did confirm a recent equity crowdfunding deal that was all set to go public on the OTC Markets, BeautyKind, had to not only fire Jaclin as their SEC lawyer but also pulled the whole deal while it was closing. I reported for Growth Capitalist BeautyKind has since said in SEC filings they hope to redo the deal and list on the NASDAQ this time.

We’ll be watching to see if Jaclin backs down and settles with the SEC or if the DOJ brings criminal charges against him like they did his co-conspirator.

*The names of the former Jaclin associates hired by Lucosky Brookman LLP are Steven Lipstein and Jason Ye.

5 Comments
28 Jan

Plainfield Asset Mgt Investors Insulted by Ex- Hedgie Executive’s Cheap Cash Offer

A former top dog portfolio manager at hedge fund Plainfield Asset Management, Marc Sole, is using the funds of his new hedge fund to try and buy out remaining investors in the now defunct Plainfield for a discount. According to offer documents seen by this reporter Sole, who now works for $4 billion Hudson Bay Capital, offered investors in four liquidating Plainfield funds 52 cents on the dollar. The problem is investors say they never received a transparent valuation from Plainfield, or the liquidator PwC Cayman, of the remaining amount of their interest in the funds.

Plainfield made international headline news in 2008 for gating their $5 billion hedge fund and locking investors from cashing out. The fund founded by Max Holmes, who now teaches at NYU’s Stern school of business, was investigated by the SEC for inflating investors assets to receive excessive fees. The SEC cleared the fund of its investigation in June 2012, according to a letter from the SEC, but Holmes was extremely slow in winding down the fund. Plainfield 2008 Liquidating Ltd. and Plainfield 2009 Liquidating Ltd. were put into voluntary liquidation in the Cayman Islands on December 31st 2013 according to public filings at gazettes.gov.ky According to investors, the portion of assets in these funds is only a sub/residual piece of what Plainfield had originally invested in.

Plainfield was also investigated by the Manhattan D.A. for its loan to own practices with small cap companies but was never charged by the D.A. for wrong doing.

Sole started with Hudson Bay in 2011, he was one of Max Holmes right hand guys helping pick investments for the failed fund. The Hudson Bay Absolute Return Credit Opportunities Fund made the offer to Plainfield investors, who are mostly institutional money, on December 16th 2014. Investors were given only 30 days to decide if they want to take the deal. Ian Stokoe and David Walker are running the Plainfield liquidation at PwC Cayman.

Sole chose to enlist the help of Plainfield’s former General Counsel Thomas X. Fritsch who is now an attorney for white-shoe Wall St. law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Fritsch is known for his dirty tactics defending Plainfield after the media was questioning the ethics of the hedge fund leadership. In 2011 I published a story showing Max Holmes caught on camera encouraging his staff how to avoid possibly incriminating emails by cc’ing Fritsch on the communication to claim attorney client privilege.

Unlike investors, Sole and Fritsch who worked as senior executives at Plainfield through its hype and downfall should have some sense of what assets are being liquidating and judge what value they could fetch on the open market.

One institutional investor who received the Hudson Bay offer told this reporter in an email, “Needless to say as an LP I find this offer in extremely poor taste and offensive. Are Sole and Fritsch that desperate to make a buck that the only way they can do it is to use inside info to screw over LPs? Shameful.”

Fritsch and Sole did not return a request for comment at press time.
The same Plainfield investor said, “We don’t have any visibility/transparency from Plainfield to ascertain current value. Our firm wrote off significant amounts in prior years. This is a stub/residual piece. We didn’t even dignify the offer [from Hudson Bay] with a response.”

It’s unclear how many Plainfield investors took the Hudson Bay offer which expired on January 15th 2015.

Plainfield’s website says, “At the end of May 2012, Plainfield substantially completed the liquidation of the funds which it managed and deregistered, in good standing, from the S.E.C.” Legal filings in the Cayman’s obviously show there is more liquidation to be done. Why Marc Sole is now offering investors some discounted cash for the fund’s remaining investments is unclear.

Hudson Bay Offer Docs Plainfield 2008 Lidquidating LTD by Teri Buhl

No Comments
17 Jan

Social Rejection?: Hedgie Steve Cohen Wants Out of East Hampton

The world’s most infamous trader wants to get out of East Hampton, NY. Yesterday I reported for the New York Observer that Stevie Cohen, of SAC Capital, is trying to broker a private deal to sell a $60 million ocean front home he bought less than a year ago. His reasoning, according to a person on the deal, is East Hampton is ‘too Jewish’ and he has instructed people to start looking for another home in other Hampton enclaves.

This one real estate transaction has fueled a social media debate about what he’s really doing. Having lived and worked among Cohen-ites and his SAC Captial traders for the last decade out in Connecticut’s gold coast I don’t think his comment is a signal of anything anti-Jewish. Instead I believe it shows his social network could be failing since the hedge fund he founded plead guilty to supporting a culture of massive inside trading.

Cohen paid the highest fees to broker dealers who moved his trades for over a decade but according to people who worked with him, starting from his early days a Gruntal & Co, they hated him because of the way he did business. I’ve been told stories of dealers at Lehman leaking other funds trade volume to Cohen and Cohen even funding smaller hedge funds to use them to create liquidity when he wanted to short a stock. The years of alleged cheating to beat the markets has left sour grapes in mouth of many on Wall Street. And now that he’s shutting down his large hedge fund his volume of fee paying to The Street will shrink. This could mean people aren’t as motivated to play friendly with the Cohens in their social time.

Stevie Cohen Family photo

Before we ran the story about why he wants to sell his East Hampton home I had multiple conversations with Cohen’s outside pressman (aka his block and tackle Flack) Jonathan Gashalter about what was going to be reported and he expressed anger at the idea we’d print the ‘too Jewish’ comment. He also would not go on the record to say neither house is up for sale before he went to print. No one knows what’s really in this hedgie’s mind when he said it and I’m sure Cohen never thought it would get repeated. Stevie Cohen has gotten stories held or changed for years through Gashalter but as the market ( and my peers in the media) are apparently waking up to how he operates it was refreshing to see the New York Observer stand by the news report and my reporting.

The news on anything Cohen, or what his family, does isn’t going to stop. Nick Verbitsky, director of Frontline’s new blockbuster film ‘To Catch a Trader’, told me the FBI even admitted that have three stock trades they are still investigating that could lead to criminal charges against Cohen. It’s my understanding one of them has a whistleblower willing to flip on Cohen; which is something we have yet to see in the DOJ’s seven plus years of trying to nail Cohen for inside trading.

Even if the DOJ is never able to get a criminal charge against Stevie, how the markets and his social network respond to what ‘they think’ he’s done is much more of a barometer for how The Street will or won’t police itself.

1 Comment
30 Oct

Biotech Firm NanoVircidies Sued For Executives Abuse of Assets

A Biotech company whose stock is soaring this year has caught the eye of short sellers after recent SEC filings showed possible self-dealings with company assets by its founders. I reported for Growth Capitalist last week, NanoViricides ($NNVC), was sued by a group of early angel investors in a shareholder derivative suit, filed in Colorado federal court, claiming company executives Anil Diwan and Eugene Seymour are abusing company assets and have breached their fiduciary duties. Yet last month the budding development company was still able to raise over $10 million through Midtown Partners with a private after market stock sale called a registered direct offering.

The RDO was offered to institutional investors at a discount of 26% percent. This means they can buy the stock after the close at the discounted price and then sell it into the market the next day at a profit. It creates trading volume in the stock but not necessarily long term value for main street investors because the hedge funds who buy the deal usually just dump the stock. Midtown Partners has done multiple RDO’s for NanoViricides raising over $30 million before fees in the last three years. But the recent offering apparently needed some help getting sold because Midtown, the placement agent, also had to offer 5 year stock warrants at $5.25.

When I asked Midtown Partners, Prakash Mandgi, about the pricing on the deal he tried to spin the terms explaining it was done at “a 20% discount to the 20 day volume weighted average price at closing and the warrants were issued at 120% of the 20 day vwap at closing”. Now here is why that is a suspect answer.

Instead of giving me the discount from the market price at the close of the day of the deal, he gave me the discount from the 20 day volume weighted average price. But, and this is important, traders do not compute NAV at 20 day VWAP prices, they mark to the closing market price. He was comparing apples to oranges.

So the units for $NNVC’s recent capital raise were priced at a deep discount (no matter how you spin it). The deep discount stock was not enough, however, and the deal also included warrants. The strike price of the warrants was at a premium to the “20 day VWAP”. Now, in the same way that the discount on the stock looks smaller if you use “20 day VWAP” instead of market price, the premium of the warrants looks greater when you use the “20 day VWAP”.

Here is an example of how this spin pricing works:

$NNVC Market price: 4.76
20 day VWAP price: 4.25
Deal/RDO Price: 3.50

So in this scenario the discount to the market price is 26.4% 1-(3.5/4.76)
The discount to the 20 Day VWAP price is 17.6% 1-(3.5/4.25)

To spin the deal as not being as bad, the bucketshop bankers like to talk about the discount from the VWAP price. Watch out if you hear your small cap stock broker or banker talk this way.

Now lets add the warrant pricing.

$NNVC Warrant Strike Price: $5.25
Market Price: 4.76
20 Day VWAP: 4.25

The strike price of the warrant computed using market price is 110% (5.25/4.76)
The strike price computed using VWAP price is 123% (5.25/4.25)

So using the VWAP price makes the warrants look less valuable. The lower the strike the more valuable the warrant. Bankers using VWAP pricing is a way to make the deal look less egregious than it really is.

Now NanoViricides CEO Eugene Seymour is fully aware of this magic math. Short sellers like Joe Spiegel of Dalek Capital Management, say they remember Seymour from a 90’s biotech stock that pumped up its share price but left long term investors in a dump. When Spiegel saw stock promoter, Patrick Cox, pumping the stock in 2010 he thought that signaled an opportunity to short it. One of the reasons listed in the investor lawsuit was that Cox had allegedly received inside information about a special biotech credit the company ‘might’ be able to get which would be worth millions of dollars. Cox allegedly published this info in his investor newsletter and the stock took a ride up. It also crashed latter when the info didn’t pan out. The suit also alleges there is a new stock promoter named ‘DrFeelGood’ who uses $NNVC stock message boards to rally interest in the stock with inside information. A look at the trading volume right before the biotech company files a press releases is something a regulator could be inspecting if they learn the stock promoters did not disclose they were getting paid to promote the stock or if they really did get inside info and traded against it.

NanoViricides hasn’t filed a response in Federal court yet to the investor claims and did not return a request for comment.

The medical technology they are working to build out, using plastic to attach to diseased cells and flush them through the blood stream, is possible but so far reads like a science project. Instead of news about the company completing medical trials investors keep hearing about their recent listing on the NYSE Mkt (the old AMEX or Scamex as some traders called it).

The details of how co-founder Anil Diwan is using $NVCC’s stock and balance sheet for side deals that benefit him personally can be found in my Growth Capitalist story.

5 Comments
« Previous Page
Next Page »