Barbs, Barbara, and Borealis March 2, 2007March 5, 2017 KEITH OLBERMANN ON SECRETARY RICE Oh, my. BARBARA GITTINGS Keith Olbermann is pretty courageous to do those commentaries – or certainly was when he did the first couple, not knowing how people would react. Stephen Colbert was really courageous to call out the President at the White House correspondents’ dinner last year. And our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are six orders of magnitude more courageous than I’ll ever be, every day of the year. As was Barbara Gittings, whose passing, at 75 recently, I’d like to acknowledge. Barbara was one of a tiny handful of women and men in the Fifties – not the Sixties, the Fifties – working, and soon picketing, for their equal rights. Ellen was courageous to come out a few years ago (cover of Time: ‘Yep, I’m Gay!’) – and did a terrific job emceeing the Oscars last Sunday, I thought. But we never would have gotten to the place where she could do that if it hadn’t been for people like Barbara, and her partner of 46 years, Kay. Here is five minutes of video so you can see for yourself what a fine American she was. BOREALIS Well, this company is nothing if not amusing (if you got in at $3 a share) – in an infuriating, preposterous sort of way. A couple of weekly emails ago, it proudly announced that its Chorus Motors subsidiary had been ‘solidly profitable’ for the year just ended – indeed, for the second year in a row. To an English-speaking person from the planet Earth, this would suggest a company that had been selling products or services on a regular basis, receiving more for them than they cost. Of course, no one at Borealis would suggest this is the case. So far as I know, neither Borealis nor any of its subsidiaries has any paying customers whatsoever. I think what they mean is that they raised more money selling Chorus Motors stock than Chorus Motors spent. ‘Solidly profitable?’ The jaw drops – and yet I hold onto every share for reasons you have heard more or less ad nauseum. Late yesterday afternoon came this weekly email (in most relevant parts): WheelTug plc We have started working on privately selling one million shares of WheelTug plc at US$20/share. 500,000 shares will come from WheelTug plc and 500,000 shares will come from Chorus Motors plc. We would then expect to go through a listing process for the company and hopefully in calendar 2007, list WheelTug plc on an exchange, with a public underwriting where the company sells an additional 500,000 shares at US$27/share to US$36/share, while other existing shareholders will be able to sell out at the underwriting to provide the market with liquidity. 25% of the shares, for example, for a full London listing will have to be in the float. There is very strong demand for WheelTug in the market place and we are delighted to be able to go ahead and work to get to market within 30 months of the above funding being in hand. This is the kind of project we know how to do and feel very comfortable doing everything from design to construction to certification. We want to thank everybody for their support of WheelTug plc so far and the future of WheelTug plc is better today than we had ever hoped. Lots of work to get underway, but WheelTug plc is simply a joy to behold. ☞ Well, it would be more of a joy if it had a customer. But if the company were able to sell a million shares at $20 each, then each Borealis share (currently selling for $10) would ‘own’ the equivalent of $20 worth of WheelTug stock. Meanwhile: Roche Bay plc Benjamin gave a speech in Frankfurt today. The slide show for the speech should be on the web page shortly. It was a fascinating speech with important implications for everybody who holds iron ore assets. Again, be sure to read the whole Roche Bay plc AXI release of a couple of weeks ago. This is a very long detailed release with loads of information. This is simply a very big deal although the markets have not really noticed what this means. ☞ Whether or not the markets have noticed, the stock seems not to have traded a single share in the two weeks since the release came out. It is currently $3.80 bid, $17 asked – meaning that no one is willing to pay more than $3.80 to buy shares, while no one who owns shares is willing to part with any for less than $17 each. Each Borealis share ‘owns’ the equivalent of a share of Roche Bay, as well. (And the equivalent of a share of Chorus Motors, a share of Power Chips, a share of Cool Chips, a share of Avto Metals, and shares of one or two others that also lack any sales or customers.) And so, Dear Reader, if you indeed bought your BOREF shares with money you can truly afford to lose – don’t sell. If any of this proves to be real, the company is worth many times its current price. Otherwise, it will have been a loss you can truly afford. Have a good weekend.