this from stockwatch.......
Peter Puccetti's halted Longford Energy Inc. (LFD) expects to complete its QT of merging with Earth Video Camera Inc. by the end of the month. The shell will roll back 1:13.55, and then issue about 46.5 million postconsolidated shares to Earth Video shareholders, after which Longford will change its name to UrtheCast Corp. It has approval to resume trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under symbol UR.
UrtheCast's promotion will be as follows: hire Russians to go to space and attach two high-definition cameras to the International Space Station which orbits the earth, and then post a near real-time live feed from those cameras on UrtheCast's website. It hopes to make money by selling high-definition images and by posting ads on the website. The company's website has a countdown until the rocket launch, scheduled for Oct. 16. It expects to begin streaming on-line in early 2014. There is no indication yet of what it will cost to hitch a ride into space with the Russians.
UrtheCast's founders are Scott and Wade Larson. Scott, the president, has spent most of his time in corporate finance, while his brother, Wade, the vice-president, is a former executive of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA: $67.61). Scott is also UrtheCast's largest shareholder with 9.24 million of the company's 33 million shares. The second-largest shareholder is UrtheCast's vice-president of Russian relations, Serguei Bedziouk, with 3.96 million shares. There is no way of knowing how much Mr. Larson and Mr. Bedziouk paid for their stock because the filing statement only offers vague descriptions of private placements in 2011 and 2012 (Mr. Larson founded the company in 2010). There was, however, an unidentified shareholder, who in 2011 was able to exercise an option to acquire 3.96 million shares at 0.01 of a cent per share, or $396. Presumably those are the shares that now belong to Mr. Bedziouk, an important man in this entire operation (UrtheCast would be UrtheBound without the Russians). Before joining UrtheCast, Mr. Bedziouk was a project manager at the Canadian Space Agency. No other UrtheCast shareholders own more than 10 per cent of its outstanding shares.
Securing Longford as the "shell" to take UrtheCast public is a big win for Scott Larson. In 2012, before Longford, he met with Toronto shell-maker Ron Schmeichel to discuss raising $50-million for a going-public transaction through one of Mr. Schmeichel's shells. At first, Mr. Schmeichel agreed and reported his plan, but after a few months the QT expired; $50-million was too steep. Longford, however, already had $24-million in its treasury, reducing UrtheCast's need for raising $50-million by half. Longford had the money in its treasury as a result of an asset sale of all its Iraqi oil and gas assets. After some grumbling, Longford shareholders agreed to use the company's money from the asset sale on a new promotion rather than on a special dividend. Mr. Puccetti says UrtheCast was Longford's best find. Others might say Longford was UrtheCast's best find.
Wade Larson has spent the past year trying to find enough investors for this project. Last year he went to Beijing for the G-Startup challenge (G for global), and earlier this year he was a speaker at a TED event in Waterloo. There, he made jargon-laden statements about his company, saying he wants to "democratize the view" of the earth from space. He says the result of UrtheCast's streaming will be a "huge meta visual narrative of our earth," whatever that means. He successfully raised $9-million by private placements in the first four months of 2013. At some point, he must speak plain English.
The Larson brothers will continue with the UrtheCast promotion following the QT. Neither Scott nor Wade has promoted a public company before. There is one condition for completing this QT that UrtheCast and Longford have remained unclear about: a $20-million private placement of $1.85 units that is conditional for listing on the TSX. Longford has assured its shareholders that if this QT fails, it will consider paying a special dividend rather than use its treasury for another deal.