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Shorting Sedona
But as the Elgindy case shows, some short sellers can be the subject of scandal themselves, rather than exposing it.
In 2003, Thomas Badian, president of New York investment firm Rhino Advisors Inc., agreed to pay a $1 million penalty to settle SEC charges that he illegally shorted more than 1 million shares of Sedona Corp. SDNA as part of a scheme to force down the price of the stock.
In late 2000, Badian agreed to invest $2.5 million in convertible securities that Sedona planned to issue, according to the SEC.
The agreement obligated Sedona to pay Badian $3 million in March 2001 and gave him the right to convert the payment into shares of the company at a 15% discount to where the stock was trading during the five days leading up to the conversion.
The agreement prohibited Badian from shorting Sedona shares, but he ignored that and shorted more than 1.1 million shares of the company, the SEC said.
During the first quarter of 2001, Sedona’s stock lost almost half its value under the pressure of Badian’s shorting. That helped him collect far more new shares at much lower prices the conversion happened, the SEC explained.
The scheme, according to regulators, involved a massive volume of improper “naked shorting,” a form of shorting that is done through illegitimate means. Badian took out such large naked-short positions on Sedona, that regulators had to place restrictions of any further shorting of the shares, the SEC said.
Instead of stopping the practice, Badian continued to short another 350,050 Sedona shares through Canadian brokers that weren’t subject to U.S. restrictions, the SEC said.
Sedona’s clash with short sellers shows how a company’s plans can be knocked off course by the practice.
It claims it was harmed by a falling stock price, which in turn made it more expensive to raise money by selling new shares. A higher cost of credit also crimped its ability to finance growth, the company says.
"We had a plan to grow the company, but we lost four years of our life," Sedona Chief Executive Marco Emrich said in an interview. "Sedona is a legitimate business and with legal support we can be very successful by eliminating these unfortunate situations."