Re: SEC probes Doyle
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Guilty of what?
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Guilty of submitting a fake bid to buy WPTE for over double its (at the time) current value in an effort to drive the price of the stock up so that he, or people he was affiliated with could profit from the spike on the news, and then sell before the collapse.
For those who weren't following the stock the following happened:
A bid for wpte by Doyle and a group of backers he represented was submitted to wpte and reported by a NY based newspaper. The bid was 700 million. The stock was floating around 19 to 20 at the time. If the bid was accepted the stock would be valued at approx. 36 a share. WPTE was asked about the bid and they confirmed the bid and halted selling for a few hours to investigate it. They came back and said it was a 'skeleton offer' (ie, short on specifics other than price) but that it looked valid. They reopened trading and the stock shot to 29 before the market closed. Huge volume that day as people were looking to get in under the 36 that it was expected to go to. Then the fishy stuff happened. WPTE said they needed to contact Doyle for more specifics. They tried to contact him, but he was playing in the WSOP and 'would not be available' until after the tournament which coincidently happened to be AFTER the offer would expire. WPTE contacted the law firm that represented Doyle in the offer. They were told that the law firm, after consideration, had removed itself from representing Doyle in the offer and had no further comment. WPTE felt they couldn't accept the offer without more specifics, I would guess regarding what current managements place in the new company makeup would be, and the stock tanked from 29 to 6. Investors lost millions if not billions on this fake bid.
Shareholders wanted an investigation. I really didn't think it would happen. Speculation on many forums for the stock is that Doyle owed some people money/favors and that he did it for them. The question will be how well they hid the money trail. I don't think he is nieve enough, nor his son for either of them to have been holding stock as that would be too obvious. If the SEC is able to connect a large sale of stock to people he knows then he will be in a lot of trouble and he will probably do time.
Many shareholders want to see him do hard time with a cellmate named 'bubba'. The people who lost money do not look at this fake bid as anything but criminal.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
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