At the Friedland Investment Events luncheon Tuesday in Houston, the food was
tasty, but the companies looking for sponsorship, financing or both were a
bit lacking. Liberty Star Uranium & Metals Corp. is mining for — you
guessed it — uranium to feed U.S. nuclear plants. While it expects $38
billion (yes, that's a "b") in cash flow over the life of its mines,
its stock trades on the OTC bulletin board in the pennies. CEO Jim Briscoe
thinks the company needs about $100 million every five years to develop its
mines and for acquisitions, and it only has $5 million in the bank right
now. Briscoe also says "nucular" and talks about being in the "catbird's
seat" and "innovative." "You have to beware when they say 'innovative,'" an
investment adviser said under his breath.
The next company — Kreido Biofuels Inc. — was a little more promising,
having developed a process that converts soybean or other oils to biodiesel
in less than a second, versus 40 to 60 minutes for conventional
technologies. The company is building a pilot plant in North Carolina
with Foothills Bio-Energies, and it's looking for equity partners to
pump in $100 million after going public via a reverse merger in January and
raising $25 million. Its stock recently traded at $1.05 per share.
And then there was Knight Energy, which also went public through a reverse
merger, bought Charles Hill Drilling for $1.5 million and is drilling for
oil in Stephens County, Texas. "We have acquisitions and mergers in mind,"
said CEO Bill Bosso, a former investment banker at PaineWebber in Atlanta.
Its stock recently traded at $2.15 per share. EnDevCo Inc., another oil and
gas explorer that trades in the pennies, didn't show up, but it claimed
its investment philosophy is "science before the drill bit." Maybe the
company spent the afternoon looking for a better name — and a better slogan.
—Claire Poole
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