What happened is what I coined long a time ago as
Post# of 39368
Quote:
The art, skill, or practice of a wizard; sorcery. 2. a. A power or effect that appears magical by its capacity to transform:
It's common practice in the pennies. It's what usually happens when a nano cap is desperate for capital to continue operations.
This practice is not necessarily illegal and it's far superior to an Asher note.
Asher Enterprises, Inc - toxic debt financier
Has Asher Enterprises Inc become the most common and most toxic of the penny stock financiers?
Over the past several months I have seen Asher Enterprises Inc show up in more and more penny stock filings.
Doing a search through SEC reporting companies brings up the name Asher Enterprises Inc almost 800 times since March of 2010
http://searchwww.sec.gov/EDGARFSClient/jsp/ED...sAdv=false
Asher Enterprises, Inc is a toxic debt financing company domiciled in Delaware, located in New York, and run by Curt Kramer.
ASHER ENTERPRISES, INC.
1 Linden Pl., Suite 207
Great Neck, NY. 11021
Curt Kramer, President
People may recognize the name Curt Kramer from Mazuma Holding Inc and Mazuma Funding Corp. Mazuma ran out of the same office as Asher Enterprises, Inc. While involved with Mazuma, Curt Kramer and his partner Charlie Mayo helped finance several penny stock scam companies.
Asher Enterprises Inc usually gets involved in smaller sized financing agreements that do not require S-1 filings. Common factors in Asher Enterprises Inc financing agreements are really high interest rates and especially ugly conversion ratios. The terms of most Asher Enterprises Inc Notes allow Asher to convert their debt into free trading shares at a 60% discount to the 3 worst closing prices over the previous 10 trading days. Taking the 3 worst closing prices over the previous 10 trading days can often translate into Asher Enterprises Inc getting their shares at well below half of the market price.
These kind of toxic debt arrangements are the most damaging type of financing arrangements because of the high amount of interest the Notes accumulate and the huge discounts given on the shares issued to the Note holder.
The lower the share price goes the more profitable these toxic debt agreements become for the Note holder like Asher Enterprises Inc. Because of this there is incentive for the Note holder to short the stock to drive down the price before converting the Note into free trading shares. After converting the Note into shares the interest changes to pumping the stock to attract buyers to try to sell those shares at as high a price as possible. The Note holder will often times pay for a promotion to facilitate the dumping of their shares. This brings in unsuspecting investors who have no idea they are about to get dumped on probably causing them great losses.
The dumping of these super discount shares drives down the share price of the stock. The lower the share price goes the harder it becomes for the company to raise capital forcing the company to seek out more toxic financing agreements. The lower the share price goes the more discounted shares have to be issued to settle these toxic debts in the future. The company is now trapped in a toxic death cycle. Once a company signs a toxic financing agreement like the type that Asher Enterprises Inc offers there is usually no escaping the inevitable toxic death cycle after that. The outstanding share count will continue to go up and the share price will continue to go down.
It is for this reason that all investors (whether short term flippers or long term investors) need to learn to read filings and recognize toxic financing agreements. Look for convertible debt Notes and look at the terms of those Notes.
Unfortunately not all penny stocks are fully reporting. For non-reporting companies there is usually no way to know if the company is involved in a toxic financing arrangement. This is one of the reasons that non-reporting companies are so risky. You never know when dilution is going to be a major factor in destroying the share price.
Not every toxic Note holder has an easily recognizable name like Asher Enterprises Inc or Lionheart Associates LLC or JMJ Financial or Tangiers Investors LP or NIR Group. Sometimes it is the insiders of the company (former officers/directors, current officers/directors, friends and relatives of former or current officers/directors, etc) that set up toxic convertible debt Notes for their own self enrichment.
Any time you see a convertible debt Note show up in a company filing you better be well aware of when the Note holder received that debt Note and when that Note can start being converted into discounted free trading shares. All convertible debt Notes are red flags for future dilution.
Hopefully some of the changes that come out of the recent SEC Roundtable on the Execution, Clearance and Settlement of Microcap Securities will help curve these self enrichment scams that involve insider owned Toxic debt Notes and also prevent the market manipulation that so often comes with all Toxic financing agreements like the ones offered by Asher Enterprises Inc.