Growth Capitalist (https://growthcapitalist.com/author/moriarty/page/147/)
NewBridge Bancorp (NBBC) announced that it has raised $15,500,000 in a Non-Convertible Subordinated Notes transaction. The securities accrue interest at a rate of 7.25%. FIG Partners, LLC acted as the exclusive agent on the transaction and the Investors include officers of the Company and members of the board of directors. Issuer counsel was Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP. via PlacementTracker.
Lustros Inc. (LSTS) announced that it has raised $1,400,000 in a Convertible Promissory Notes transaction. The fixed conversion price of the Convertible Promissory Notes is $0.16 per share, an approximate 46.79% premium to the market price ($0.109) of LSTS at deal announcement. A series of 1,750,000 36-Month Warrants with an exercise price of $0.25 per share (129.4% premium) was issued to the investors in this transaction. The Investors include officers of the Company and members of the board of directors. via PlacementTracker.
Regulators over the last several weeks have signaled that they are prepared to loosen regulations overseeing merger and acquisition brokers, advisory firms, and other consulting businesses that don’t facilitate securities offerings but may nevertheless receive compensation based on securities-related transactions.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled a suit against a Long Island, New York man running his own money through his prop-trading firm, Worldwide Capital, for short selling on sixty stocks that violated Rule 105. The regulator touted the $7.2 million fine as the largest Rule 105 settlement to day and boasted they have now collected in excess of $42 million through settling over 40 actions against firms with investment advisors. Worldwide’s founder, Jeffery M. Lynn, age 55, engaged in an investment strategy focused primarily on new shares of public issuers coming to market through secondary and follow-on public offerings. The SEC alleges that, through traders he engaged to trade on his behalf, Lynn sought allocations of additional shares soon to be publicly offered, usually at a discount to the market price of the company’s already publicly trading shares. He and his traders would then sell those shares short during the pre-offering restricted period. The regulator claims Lynn and Worldwide Capital improperly profited from the difference between the price paid to acquire the offered shares and the market price on the date of the offering in stocks such as Citigroup. “The trading conducted by Lynn and Worldwide Capital disregarded the markets’ independent pricing mechanisms,” said Amelia A. Cottrell, associate director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office. “Their use of multiple accounts in obtaining offering shares and short selling did not satisfy the separate accounts exception to Rule 105.”
The SEC says, as a result of these Rule 105 violations, Worldwide and Lynn received ill-gotten gains totaling approximately $8,425,595.
