Oh, you thought SPNG and GVBP were the only 2 penny stocks to partake in shady, sketchy dealings? (Remember, this penny stock manipulation blog post is a MUST READ.) No way, those are just two convicts in a prison full of dangerous felons. You get the analogy…
(And I’m tried of answering this question: of course you can short sell penny stocks, that’s how TIMalert subscribers and I made $40,000+ the other day and that’s just before GVBP got halted by the SEC, meaning if and when it reopens, it’ll be at like a penny and we’re gonna bank some more $$$$$)
I would’ve gone into such detail as this Dow Jones NewsPlus article, but I haven’t been able to find any shares to short of this stock, so congrats to the few TIMalert subscribers and others who have (they are floating around there, this is easy money!!!)
For the rest of us, we can just read this stuff and learnnnnn. I don’t care if it’s a Friday afternoon, pump & dumps come all year round, you either want to be one of the few who enjoy easy well-researched profits or you want to be one of the many lazy Americans who want to get rich without working for it. Choose.
BioNeutral Group Inc. (BONU) is one of the many companies hoping to benefit from the swine flu pandemic, thanks to a disinfectant that it says can contain the nasty bug.
The Newark, N.J., company has issued press releases about positive test results for its germicide, Ygiene, in fighting the H1N1 virus, hired a new law firm to assist with the regulatory process and brought in Washington D.C. consultant The Chertoff Group LLC to provide strategic and operational advice.
Investors who had been cheered by those developments — as well as a flurry of reports from promotional entities that were paid tens of thousands of dollars to tout the stock — appear to be rethinking the company’s potential.
BioNeutral’s stock, which had risen from about 25 cents a share in mid-August to a high of $3.50 on Sept. 1, was recently trading around $1.48 a share.
Caution would seem to be warranted considering the company hasn’t yet brought a product to market, has had no revenue recently and has even warned about its viability. Investors might also want to consider the company’s inability to answer even the most basic questions about the status of its trademark applications and the background of a large investor and director.
A spokeswoman for BioNeutral didn’t answer any questions about the company and its management. Several messages left on BioNeutral’s answering machine weren’t returned, and emails to press relations staff received no response.
Trading volume in the stock soared to more than 10 times its normal level in late August and early September. The increase coincided with a proliferation of stock promotion by firms that were paid handsomely for their efforts.
Among those involved: Lebed.biz said it received $20,000; Thestockscout.com said it got $230,000 and 100,000 free trading shares; Flaherty Financial News Inc. said it got $20,000 from Red Rock Marketing Media and $10,000 from Creative marketing Group; and Stockegg.com said it received $65,000 from DC Media LLC.
Third-party payments to promote stock aren’t new in the Over-the-Counter-Bulletin-Board market, where BioNeutral trades, but investors should be aware that there are firms getting paid to tout the stock.
BioNeutral became a publicly traded company in January through a share exchange between BioNeutral Laboratories USA and corporate shell Moonshine Creations. The company says it has two main products — Ygiene, which tackles problems ranging from influenza pandemics to anthrax, and Ogiene, an odor neutralizer.
BioNeutral said in a press release that Ygiene is undergoing testing necessary to apply for registration with the Environmental Protection Agency. Jeffrey Runge of The Chertoff Group said the group was hired to help BioNeutral bring Ygiene to commercialization.
The group, founded by former Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, will receive a 10% equity interest in BioNeutral over the next three years for its work. The group is also getting paid a minimum monthly cash compensation of $75,000. Runge said the group’s decision to take on BioNeutral as a client was independent of its stock price.
BioNeutral said in its most recent quarterly report that it had $212,326 in cash as of July 30 with assets of about $11.9 million, most of which are patents. The company reported a net loss of $4.3 million for the nine months ended July 31.
The financial statements include a “going concern” statement warning investors that the ability of BioNeutral to continue operating depends upon its ability to obtain outside sources of capital.
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office online database, BioNeutral Laboratories originally applied to trademark Ygiene and Ogiene in 2005 and 2006. According to the PTO database, the applications were deemed “abandoned” in November 2008. A lawyer for BioNeutral filed a new application to trademark Ogiene on July 31, 2009. That same lawyer filed a trademark application for Ygiene on that same date, almost three months after another wannabe flu fighter named Pure Bioscience Corporation (PURE) filed its own trademark application for the name.
The BioNeutral lawyer wasn’t available for comment. A spokesman for Pure was also unavailable to comment.
A patent application for a germ killer was filed by BioNeutral Laboratories and its chief scientist, Andrew Kielbania, on Nov. 5, 2008. Another patent for an odor killer was filed in 2005 by BioNeutral Laboratories and three individuals, including a New Zealand resident, Andrew Novelle.
Philip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology at New York University and a consultant to BioNeutral, said he had been approached by Novelle a few years back. Tierno described the new product Ygiene as the “serendipitous combination of three ingredients” that gave BioNeutral the ability to make very the formula to hit any kind of organism.
BioNeutral Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Browand and investor and director Raj Pamani, who in June 2008 was quoted as Raj Pamnani in a BioNeutral press release, didn’t return calls seeking comment.
According to information available online, Raj Pamani registered BioNeutral’s online domain name in April 2008. The E-mail address associated with the domain is pamnani3000@yahoo.com. Calls to the phone number associated with the domain name weren’t returned.
Besides the June 2008 BioNeutral press release, the BioNeutral director and investor is referred to as Pamani in all other public documents from the company.
Information available in an online broker dealer database shows that a Raj Pamnani between 1986 and 1997 worked for several brokerage firms, some of which were plagued by large numbers of customer complaints. According to Pamani’s official BioNeutral biography, he was “instrumental in taking public” a number of biotech companies in the past. Three of the five companies mentioned in the biography were taken public by brokerage firms where Pamnani worked at the time.
Company officials did not answer whether Raj Pamani is the same as the Raj Pamnani who comes up in the broker dealer database.
In 1986, the Raj Pamnani who appeared in the database worked at Blinder, Robinson & Co., a brokerage firm that got into trouble over its sales practices for penny stocks. Blinder Robinson was later known in the industry as “Blind “em and Rob “em.”
After leaving Blinder, this Pamnani joined Kureen & Cooper, a firm whose president, Paul Russo, was later convicted of securities fraud. After Kureen & Cooper closed, Pamnani worked for Richmond Securities Inc. from 1986 to 1990. The firm was expelled from the industry by brokerage regulator NASD, now FINRA, in 1995 for failing to pay fines levied after it was accused of overcharging customers.
According to an NASD arbitration document, Pamnani and Richmond in 1994 were, respectively, ordered to pay $22,844 and $16,316 to two customers who claimed that he put their money in unsuitable investments. It’s unclear whether Pamnani, who according to the document claimed he had discussed transactions with his clients and that each investment was suitable, paid the fine.
A Raj Pamnani worked with BioNeutral CEO Browand on a previous venture. According to a Dec. 14, 2001, article in the Long Island Business News, Quantum Venture Partners, a Manhattan venture capital firm founded by Pamnani, funded Browand’s New York Security Service Group to the tune of $10 million.
Browand also served as president of New York newsstand operator Eastern Lobby Shops. According to information available online, Browand volunteers with the Garden City Special Police with duties including Sunday crossings, Christmas tree lighting and parades.
Investors better hope Chertoff knows what he is doing.
Posted in Manipulation