Volume slips on mixed stocks; Ladenburg plans $10 million stock sale

By Sheri Kasprzak

Atlanta, June 10 - As most of the major stock indexes suffered losses as the week wrapped up, new private placement issuance was limited to mostly smaller deals, sell-siders said.

"There are some things out there, but stocks are just keeping things slow," said one sell-sider based in New York. "Fridays are usually slower anyway."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 9.61 to close at 10,512.63; the Nasdaq composite index lost 13.91 to finish at 2,063 while the S&P 500 slipped 2.82 to end at 1,198.11.

"I've seen a lot of smaller deals today," said another sell-sider focused on tech deals. "If [market] conditions improve, I think you'll see more tech deals as next week goes on."

That market source noted that tech stocks may be improving on word earlier this week that ImClone Systems Inc. expects big earnings from its anti-tumor drug Erbitux.

In addition to lackluster stocks, a slip in oil prices kept energy companies from pricing deals, sell-siders in Canada said.

"Just not good market conditions today," said one source. "Not to say they're out of the market or that it's any particular trend, but they're just holding off today."

Oil dipped $0.74 to close at $53.45 per barrel.

Ladenburg's $10 million offering

In the financial sector, New York-based securities broker Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. announced its plans to head to the private placement market with a $10 million offering of stock.

The deal includes 22,222,222.22 shares at $0.45 each, a 22.4% discount to the company's closing stock price of $0.58 each on Thursday.

After the offering was announced Friday afternoon, Ladenburg's stock gained $0.07, or 12.07%, to close at $0.65.

The company plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes.

Sherwood Mining raises C$8.76 million

Moving to the natural resources sector, Sherwood Mining Corp. said it has closed a private placement for C$8,758,500.

The company sold 26,234,000 special warrants at C$0.25 each and 8.8 million flow-through shares at C$0.25 each.

The special warrants were exchanged for one unit following the company's acquisition of Minto Explorations Ltd. The units include one share and one warrant. The warrant allows for an additional share at C$0.35 each through June 7, 2007.

Four million of the special warrants and the flow-through shares were issued on a non-brokered basis. The remainder of the offering was placed through a syndicate of agents led by Dundee Securities Corp. and Westwind Partners Inc.

After the deal was announced late Thursday, the company's stock lost C$0.02 to close at C$0.275 on Friday.

Based in Vancouver, B.C., Sherwood is a mineral exploration company.

BIO-Key closes $4.5 million deal

BIO-Key International, Inc. wrapped up a $4.5 million private placement of convertible debentures sold to a group of institutional and accredited investors led by Laurus Funds Ltd.

Even though the full terms of the offering couldn't be determined by the close of business Friday, the debentures are convertible into common shares at $1.35 each.

The investors also received warrants for 1.3 million shares, exercisable at $1.52 each.

Jesup & Lamont was the placement agent.

"With all the recent publicized events of compromised data and identity theft, we are seeing a major inflection point in biometric demand," said Mike DePasquale, the company's chief executive officer, in a statement.

"These additional financial resources, at favorable terms, will provide us the financial flexibility to continue to execute our plan and pursue incremental growth opportunities. We affirm our guidance for 30% revenue growth for the second quarter and we want to ensure we have the resources in place to capture the emerging near-term biometric and handheld mobile and wireless opportunities we see."

Based in Wall, N.J., BIO-Key develops finger-based biometric identification and wireless public safety products.

The company's stock closed unchanged at $1.07 Friday.

CanArgo's stock closes up

A day after announcing it has received agreements for its $25 million private placement, CanArgo Energy Corp.'s stock made gains Friday.

The company's stock gained $0.13, or 15.85%, to close at $0.95 Friday.

On Thursday, when the deal was first announced, CanArgo's stock climbed $0.08, or 10.81%, to close at $0.82.

"It's from the deal," said one market source when asked if the company's gains were because of the offering.

The conversion price in the deal is at a premium. The source said the company was able to achieve pricing at a premium because of one its current shareholders is buying the loan.

CanArgo, a New York-based oil exploration company, sold loan notes convertible into common shares at $0.90 each.

Whittier's stock continues gains

Two days after announcing one of the largest deals of the week, Whittier Energy Corp.'s stock continued to climb Friday.

The company's stock gained $0.08, or 2.74%, to close at $3 on Friday after closing up $0.12, or 4.29%, at $2.92 Thursday.

When the $50 million private placement was first announced Wednesday, Whittier's stock lost $0.20 to close at $2.80.

The company plans to sell preferred shares at $60 each.

Whittier is a Houston-based oil exploration company.

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