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Evidently Mr. Glenn did not make much headway on that assignment. He was replaced by lawyer Donald J. Stoecklein soon after Mr. Maheu joined CMKM's board of directors in February of this year.
"Like the SEC, protecting our investors is a primary concern," the newly appointed Mr. Maheu stated on March 4.
"We have been aggressively gathering the essential information needed to comply with our public disclosure obligations and anticipate working with the SEC to ensure our compliance with all federal regulations," Mr. Maheu continued.
"We are not letting these regulatory matters impede our primary focus of creating stockholder value through the mining and development of our mineral assets," CMKM's octogenarian co-chairman of a month said.
The March 4 news release went on to discuss the ramifications of an amended Form 15 filed by the company on Feb. 17.
As previously reported by Stockwatch, on July 22, 2003, CMKM filed a certification with the SEC claiming that it had less than 300 shareholders of record, something that effectively exempts a company from reporting obligations.
As disclosed on Feb. 17, however, the original Form 15 was inaccurate; CMKM had more than double the previously reported number of shareholders of record at the time and the company should have been filing all along.
"SEC regulations require CMKX to file, within 60 days after the date of the filing of the amended Form 15, all reports which would have been required had the original Form 15 not been filed," CMKM reported on March 4.
"CMKX has not been provided a waiver, 'variance' or any other relief by the SEC for complying with the 60-day requirement," the company disclosed.
In spite of the fact that CMKM has been touting its efforts to become fully reporting for almost a year, and particularly since it hired Mr. Glenn last June, the company evidently does not think it will be able to fully comply with SEC reporting obligations any time soon.
"In fact, due to the overwhelming number of reports that need to be filed, coupled with the necessary financial statement preparation, CMKX will not be able to comply with the 60-day requirement," massively diluted CMKM reported on March 4.
However, the company does anticipate "filing a number of significant corporate updates with the SEC in the upcoming weeks on Form 8-K." Simply put, those forms are used to disclose material changes. CMKM last filed a Form 8-K on April 25, 2003.
CMKM's March 4 news release went on to draw again from the SEC's website.
"The laws and rules that govern the securities industry in the United States derive from a simple and straightforward concept: all investors, whether large institutions or private individuals, should have access to certain basic facts about an investment prior to buying it," CMKM quoted from the SEC website.
While that is indeed "a simple and straightforward concept," it is not a concept that CMKM has put into practice.
After signing the inaccurate Form 15 that inappropriately dropped CMKM into non-reporting obscurity two years ago, Mr. Casavant stopped providing financial statements and other basic information; issued approximately 100 press releases, many of them long on vague promotional puffery and short on meaningful details; issued hundreds of billions of shares without so much as a peep to shareholders; and, among other things, gagged the company's transfer agent.
With the SEC now breathing down his neck and the company expecting a formal demand for production of documents, it appears that Mr. Casavant has experienced some type of epiphany.
"We understand the importance of supplying accurate information to the public and have made it our top priority to uncompromisingly disclose all material corporate information as soon as it becomes available," Mr. Casavant declared on March 4.
Evidently in keeping with the recently embraced "simple and straightforward concept" of providing basic facts to investors, CMKM disclosed that the company currently has more than 703.5 billion shares issued and outstanding.
While that is whopping outstanding total, it is down from the staggering 779 billion shares that were outstanding last fall, thanks largely to the Dec. 18, 2004, repurchase of 75 billion CMKM shares from Nevada Minerals Inc.
The March 4 news release also disclosed that the massively diluted pink sheet promotion is headed by an executive team of one. Mr. Casavant is the chief executive officer, president, secretary and treasurer.
The one-man operation is backstopped by a two-man board of directors consisting of Mr. Casavant and Mr. Maheu.
According to the March 4 news release, former Snoop Doggy Dog associate Michael Williams will join the board of directors when the company obtains "D&O insurance."
Finding an outfit willing to underwrite a directors and officers liability policy for a massively diluted subpenny pink sheet company under SEC scrutiny may prove something of a challenge.
Before wrapping up its March 4 news release, CMKM made another plea to investors.
"Investors and stockholders are being asked to please refrain from contacting the company, the SEC, NASD, the Transfer Agent and/or Stoecklein Law Group to allow them to focus on completing the tasks at hand," the company requested.
Given that both the NASD and the SEC invite communications from the public and, moreover, the SEC has specifically invited contact from anyone with information regarding CMKM, the company's plea on behalf of the regulatory agencies may be misguided.
Rounding out its March 4 commentary with another gesture of good corporate citizenship, CMKM encouraged its shareholders and other investors to visit the SEC website, "which offers the public a wealth of educational information."
The reaction
As previously reported by Stockwatch, CMKM has an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 shareholders, including a large number of Internet followers.
While there are a dozen or more stock message boards dedicated almost exclusively to CMKM, some of them heavily censored to keep out criticism of the company, many of the company's most devoted followers congregate by the hundreds on PalTalk, a site that offers both text and audio messaging in virtual rooms.
Several PalTalk rooms are devoted to CMKM, but the largest and most popular room on the site is Sterling's Classroom, which can accommodate 1,000 people. Named after CMKM tout Major Sterling Collins, the room is home to the largest congregation of the company's cult-like Internet followers.
Among the fantasies embraced by the PalTalk faithful was the notion that CMKM had a very low number of outstanding shares; some starry-eyed investors even professed a belief that there were no outstanding shares at all.
Accurate reports that the company had 779 billion shares outstanding last fall were dismissed out of hand and anyone with the temerity to suggest that there were in fact hundreds of billions of shares outstanding would be virtually tarred, feathered and run out of the PalTalk refuge from reality on a rail.
The March 4 disclosure by CMKM that more than 703.5 billion shares were issued and outstanding might have rattled a less devoted bunch, but not the PalTalk faithful who make run-of-the-mill massive conspiracy theorists look like a bunch of unimaginative pikers.
Some of CMKM's PalTalk followers quickly seized upon an awkward parenthetical comment in the company's disclosure of the outstanding shares.
"Of the 800 billion authorized shares of common stock, CMKX currently has 703,518,875,000 shares of common stock issued and outstanding to approximately 2,032 stockholders of record (excluding shares held in 'street name')," the March 4 news release stated.
That was quickly interpreted to mean that 2,032 shareholders held more than 703.5 billion certificated shares, leaving the number of shares in street form, which is how the vast majority of investors hold shares, excluded from the number of issued and outstanding shares reported by CMKM.
That shaky interpretation, to put it charitably, is still firmly held by many of the PalTalk faithful.
On more solid ground, other CMKM PalTalk followers point out that the float is still unknown.
Moving from solid ground to gossamer speculation, however, the many of company's PalTalk faithful incorporate the unknown float into a refashioned fantasy, claiming that there is really no float at all. Mr. Casavant and members of his family, they claim, have purchased the float.
At the root of these fantasies is another strictly held tenet among CMKM's cult-like PalTalk followers: there is a massive naked short position in CMKM.
Many of the CMKM PalTalk faithful are firmly convinced that the SEC is colluding with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., the National Securities Clearing Corp., market makers, offshore hedge funds and others to mask a huge naked short position.
There is, of course, no evidence of a significant short position, naked or covered, in the massively diluted pink sheet promotion that has been changing hands at two-100ths of a U.S. penny and less for months, but fantasies do not rest on evidence.
Late on March 7, with seven trading sessions remaining in CMKM's 10-day suspension, more than 600 of the company's PalTalk faithful were still holding their Internet fantasy vigil.
CMKM last traded on March 2 when approximately 3.2 billion shares changed hands and the stock closed at two-100ths of a U.S. cent.
The saga continues.
Comments regarding this article may be sent to lwebb@stockwatch.com.
(More information regarding CMKM Diamonds and associated companies can be found in Stockwatch articles dated Oct. 21, 2003; June 22; Sept. 16 and 24; Oct. 1, 15 and 20, 2004; and Feb. 11, 14, 18, 22 and 23; and March 1, 3 and 4, 2005.)
cmkxdiamond.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1110247705
