Markets
Penny Stock Printing Machine

TJ Management in Bogus Placements, SEC Says

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Yossef Kahlon and TJ Management Group secretly bought billions of deeply discounted shares from Pink Sheets companies and illegally sold them to a poorly informed public from 2008 to 2010, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission suit. Some of the issuers involved also sought equity or equity line financing in the PIPE market at one time or another. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Texas’ Sherman Division. New York-based TJ Management allegedly reaped some $7 million in gains from fraudulent transactions involving large positions in companies such as Atlantis Internet Group Corp., RMD Entertainment Group, My Vintage Baby, Lecere Corp., Landstar Inc.(LSTR), Hard to Treat Diseases Inc., Good Life China Corp., VIPR Industries Inc., ChromoCure Inc., Biocentric Energy Holdings and Skybridge Technology Group. “TJM’s business model was predicated on acquiring large blocks of stock from small companies in multiple successive transactions at a price of at least 40% less than the prevailing market price and quickly reselling the stock into the public market without registration,” according to the SEC’s complaint.

Deals

$34M Growth Cap Placement for Meta Financial Group

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Meta Financial Group (CASH) announced that it raised $34,179,600 in a Common Stock equity private placement (EPP) transaction. The common stock was sold at $21.91 per share, an approximate 7% discount to the market price ($23.52) of Meta at deal announcement. Sandler O'Neill & Partners acted as the exclusive agent on the transaction. The investors were affiliates of Altamont Capital Partners, Philadelphia Financial Management of San Francisco, NetSpend Holdings, Brookside Equity Partners, JTH Holding, Weintraub Capital Management, Harvest Capital Strategies, and other institutional and individual investors. Issuer counsel was Katten Muchin Rosenman and investor counsel was Greenberg Traurig, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, and Ropes & Gray.

Markets

Ed Tech Re-Educating Investors

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As a work-at-home writer with school-aged kids, I think that the middle of August is just about the most wonderful time of year. But kids aren’t the only ones going back to school. Looking at the pop in early-stage education technology financings, it appears that venture and growth capital investors are getting refresher courses on the potential of “ed tech” startups, whether they’re mobile app developers or online universities. On Wednesday came news that New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Tomorrow Ventures and Allen & Co. had joined Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Twitter founder Evan Williams and others to invest $10 million in Washington, D.C.-based EverFi.

Deals

TICC Capital in CMPO Overnight/Offering

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TICC Capital Corp. (TICC) announced that it has raised $28.95 million in a CMPO/Overnight transaction. The common stock was sold at $9.65 per share, an approximate 3% discount to the market price at deal announcement. Barclays Capital acted as Lead-Agent with Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. acting as Co-Agent on the transaction. Placement agent counsel was Hunton & Williams, LLP and issuer counsel was Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, LLP.