{"id":697,"date":"2007-11-03T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=697"},"modified":"2007-11-03T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T00:01:00","slug":"huckabee-confict-of-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=697","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee confict of Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n
\n

Huckabee stands <\/span><\/strong>to gain from deal<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

He’s director at firm in merger<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n

June 28, 2006<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

BY JAKE BLEED<\/span><\/p>\n

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE<\/span><\/p>\n

The New York-based com­pany that counts Gov. Mike Huckabee among its
\ndirectors began merging Tuesday with a separate shell company, a cheap and fast
\nway to go pub­lic.<\/p>\n

With a complex series of stock transactions, Park Ave­nue’s Flagship
\nPatient Advo­cates Inc. will become part of Finity Holdings Inc., an Ohio-based shell company whose shares were
\nrecently traded for a penny and whose ma­jor shareholders include two men who
\nwere convicted last year of bank fraud and other charges in Colorado.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

The resulting company will be renamed Patients &
\nPhysi­cians Inc., said Fred Nazem,<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

chairman and chief executive officer of both Flagship and Finity. The
\nnew company will specialize in providing mem­bers-only medical services, in­cluding
\nreferrals to a network of top medical and surgical specialists around the
\nworld.<\/p>\n

Nazem said Finity and Flag­ship will officially merge to­day, with the
\nfiling of a restat­ed certificate of incorporation. Finity shareholders
\nauthorized the transaction at a meeting at Flagship’s offices Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Huckabee was traveling in Japan on Tuesday. He said he did not
\nparticipate in the merger decision. He said his involvement with the company is
\nlimited and that he wasn’t sure if he would benefit from his involvement with
\nFlag-See MERGER,<\/strong>Page 2B<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Merger<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

•<\/span> Continued from
\nPage 1B <\/span>ship.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Obviously, he doesn’t have me on there because I’m one
\nof the world’s richest men,” Huckabee said.<\/p>\n

Nazem asked Huckabee to
\njoin the company after reading
\nthe governor’s book, Quit Dig­
\nging Your Grave with a Knife
\nand Fork, <\/em>and hearing some of
\nhis lectures on health.           <\/span><\/span>._<\/p>\n

Shell company transactions
\ncan be hugely profitable. Re­
\npublican candidate for governor
\nAsaHutchinson saw a $2,800
\n“initial investment in Fortress
\nAmerica Acquisition Corp.
\ngrow to more than $1 million
\non paper after the shell com­-
\npany acquired another business,
\nearlier this month.                <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Finity isn’t much of a compa­ny, with no assets
\nreported on the company’s balance sheet, according to filings with the
\nSecurities and Exchange Com­mission.<\/p>\n

However, the company does have regulatory approval to be traded
\npublicly, which makes it an attractive partner for pri­vately held companies
\nthat are looking to go public, said Bob Williams, managing director of Little
\nRock-based Delta Trust.<\/p>\n

Finity’s shares are traded un­der the ticker symbol FNTY on
\nthe Over the Counter Bulletin Board, a market used primarily by small companies
\nwith low-value, “penny” stocks, includ­ing Fortress America.<\/p>\n

Finity’s shares ended Tues­day trading at eight cents a
\nshare, up from one cent on June 13.<\/p>\n

Going public is expensive,
\nWilliams said, and is an option
\nusually reserved for large and
\ngrowing companies. For smaller
\noutfits, it’s easier and cheaper
\nto take over a shell company
\nand its publicly traded stock,
\nwhat Williams call “a back­
\nwards acquisition of a public
 <\/span>shell
\ncompany.”<\/u>_____________ <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

the governor.<\/p>\n

Nazem said only Finity shares will be affected by the combination.
\nFlagship share­holders, including Huckabee, will retain the same number of
\nshares, Nazem said.<\/p>\n

Flagship and Finity have the same officers and directors, ac­cording to
\nFinity’s proxy, and Huckabee will remain a direc­tor of Patients &
\nPhysicians Inc.<\/p>\n

Huckabee is one of 10 of-
\nficers and directors listed in
\nFinity’s proxy statement filed
\nwith the SEC on June 15. The
\n25,000 shares that Huckabee
\nhas the option to exercise rep-­
\nresent less than one-tenth of
\none percent of the Flagship’s
\noutstanding shares.               <\/span><\/span>_<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s decision by the Finity shareholders will
\nsee the company execute a series of transactions designed to bring the value of
\nshares in Finity in line with Flagship. That in­cluded a 125-to-l reverse stock
\nsplit, and the authorization of tens of millions of additional shares.<\/p>\n

“The reverse stock split is really just getting
\nthe numbers of the stock right,” Nazem said, adding that the transactions
\ndidn’t change the actual value of either company.<\/p>\n

It was part of what Nazem called a
\n“housecleaning” of Finity. The shell company was originally founded
\nas Colum­bia Capital Corp. in 1993, and partnered with Boulder, Colo.-based
\nBestBank, in processing credit cards.<\/p>\n

BestBank was later declared insolvent, and two men involved <\/span>with both companies, Glenn
\nGallant and Douglas Baetz of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were later found guilty by
\na federal jury on 63 counts, including bank fraud, and continuing a finan­cial
\ncrimes enterprise.<\/p>\n

Although a federal judge lat­er dismissed 27 of those
\ncounts, the pair still face a minimum sentence of 10 years on some counts,
\nsa<\/u>id Jeff Dors<\/u>chner, a<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Huckabee stands to gain from deal He’s director at firm in merger June 28, 2006 BY JAKE BLEED ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE The New York-based com­pany that counts Gov. Mike Huckabee among its directors began merging Tuesday with a separate shell company, a cheap and fast way to go pub­lic. With a complex series of stock transactions, … Continue reading Huckabee confict of Interest<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-shameful-record"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}