Reverse Merger Advocates

Ted Turner

After inheriting his father's small billboard company, Ted Turner found himself facing the hard facts of business. His dad's operation was in rough financial shape. Turner had a bold vision for the future. He became fixed on building a media empire based on new satellite technology and the expansion of television markets with the opening of the UHF broadcasting bands.

In 1970, with a little investment cash, Turner acquired the once publicly traded Rice Broadcasting (WJRJ-TV) in Atlanta. Merging his billboard company into Rice Broadcasting adding value to the company's stock. Turner was now in a position to tap the capital markets of Wall Street.

He created TBS, the first national UHF superstation,  CNN, and The Cartoon Network. Latter he purchased the MGM/UA film library and launched Turner Film Classics. Never one to sit still, Turner acquired a national baseball franchise which he moved to Atlanta. After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the long established CBS-TV network Turner Broadcasting was itself acquired by the Time/Warner corporation. Today, his personal worth is over five billion dollars.


Muriel Seibert

In the early '60's a college drop-out left Cleveland, Ohio and moved to New York City determined to find a career. She was interested in business and the stock market in particular. The problem was, women had very limited roles they could play in Wall Street finance.

Muriel Seibert knew the importance and value of information in the Wall Street game of high finance. She became a top industry annalist, specializing in the aviation and entertainment markets. When she began getting calls from major institutional buyers who wanted to place orders she knew it was time to get her own brokers license. In 1967 Seibert made history by becoming the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. She founded her own brokerage, Muriel Seibert & Co. in 1970. Between 1977 and 1987 she served as the New York State Superintendent of Banks. By February of 1996, Wall Street's top woman executive, could see where brokerage services were headed. To fund the move to discount brokerage services and internet trading Seibert took her brokerage firm public. Utilizing a reverse merger with J. Michaels Inc., a defunct, but publicly traded Brooklyn furniture company, the firm of Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc. (SIEB) was created. By 1999, Seibert's company was rated the number one discount brokerage by Money Magazine (June '99). Her company's stock reached a 52 week high of over $70 per share.  

Tony Robbins

To Tony Robbins, success is a matter of "Awakening the Giant Within." In this case, that giant is worth a ton of cash. The broad-jawed spokesman for self-esteem pulls in more than $80 million from sales of books, tapes and seminars annually. And now, he's self-helping his way into the dot.com craze. Trading on little more than name and charisma, the 39-year-old has become chairman and majority owner of a publicly traded Net company whose value now exceeds $480 million. "We are developing the eBay of personal and professional empowerment," says Robbins.

The new company, GHS Inc., has no revenues from Net operations. As of September 1999, it did not have a Website. In fact, the company had existed only as an obscure provider of medical services. Now, through what is known as a reverse merger, the company is giving Robbins access to  publicly traded stock without the time-consuming, expensive, and disclosure -intensive process of an initial public offering.

Since May 1999, when Wall Street got word that Robbins was coming aboard and GHS would be recreated as a dot.com, the company's stock soared from $.75 to $12. This gave the broker who organized the deal a $48 million dollar paper gain on their original investment. Robbins, who put in no cash, has a stake worth $276 million.

The increased value of GHS stock will enable the group to purchase additional assets. They recently acquired the rights to SanFrancisco-based "The Learning Access" which has more than 700 not-for-credit courses.
Excerpt from Business Week Magazine
Sept. 13, 1999 Pg. 48 By Kathleen
Morris


  • Armand Hammer, world renowned oil magnate and industrialist, is generally credited with having invented the "Reverse Merger". In the 1950s, Hammer invested in a shell company into which he merged multi decade winner Occidental Petroleum.
  • One of the Dot Com fallen Angels, Rare Medium (RRRR), merged with a lackluster refrigeration company and changed the entire business. This was a $2 stock in 1998 which found its way over $90 in 2000.
  • Acclaim Entertainment (AKLM) merged into non operating Tele-Communications Inc in 1994. _____________________________________________________________