Campbell Fund Trust wraps $22.2 million deal; PIPE issuance may depend upon oil in coming week

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, Sept. 2 - Campbell Fund Trust led private placement news Friday, announcing the closing of a $22,225,938 offering of trust units.

The full details of the offering could not be determined by press time and neither Bruce Cleland, the company's chief executive officer nor Theresa Banks, the company's chief financial officer returned requests for additional information by press time Friday.

The company completed a similar offering on Aug. 3 for $20,168,507.

Campbell Fund Trust realized an increase in its net earnings for the quarter ended June 30. The company reported a net income of $88,984,332 for the second quarter of 2005, compared to a net income of $51,687,514 for the same quarter in 2004.

Based in Towson, Md., Campbell Fund Trust is a commodity contracts broker and dealer.

In the broader PIPE market Friday, sell-siders said next week's volume may depend on whether oil prices settle down and whether the stock market can bounce back quickly from a week marked by devastation from Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent spike in oil prices.

Oil, in fact, dropped on Friday, but some market sources said they wondered how long it would take before prices return to all-time highs.

Oil prices plunged $1.42 on Friday to end at $68.05 per barrel after reaching more than $70 per barrel at one point this week.

"It's only a matter of time before it gets back up [to that level]," said one sell-sider.

He noted that prices are back down again because some refineries are back in action, but noted that this could be a temporary dip sparked by news.

"Too early to tell," said another market source on Friday of what volume may be like next week. "A lot depends on what this hurricane situation looks like. If you ask me now, I think stocks are probably going to suffer, at least for a while. It looks pretty dire."

Stocks were mixed through the day following more reports of the economic impact from Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. At the end of the day, however, all of the major indexes had taken a hit, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 12.26 to close at 10,447.37 and the Nasdaq composite index slipping 6.83 to close at 2,141.07. The Standard & Poor's 500 composite index finished the day off 3.57 to close at 1,218.02.

Balloch leads Canadian offerings

Heading up Canadian offerings at the end of the week was Balloch Resources Ltd. with a C$17 million subscription receipt offering.

Balloch announced its plans Friday to sell up to 13.6 million of the subscription receipts at C$1.25 apiece.

The receipts are redeemable for common shares on a one-for-one basis as soon as Balloch files a technical report regarding properties, lands and concessions associated with its Kamoto joint venture assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

GMP Securities Ltd. and Quest Capital Corp. are the placement agents for the offering.

The Toronto-based mineral exploration company plans to use the proceeds to acquire 23.33% ownership interest in Kinross Forrest Ltd. from Kinross Gold Corp. Kinross Forrest owns 75% interest of the Kamoto joint venture. The rest of the proceeds will be used to fund a feasibility study on the property.

After the offering was announced Friday afternoon, the company's stock remained at C$1.78.

Two oil offerings

With oil and minerals dominating not only PIPE issuance in Canada but the entire PIPE market, only two energy offerings grabbed headlines on Friday.

As oil prices were shoved down, stocks in Canada were also pushed down.

"It held things up a bit," noted one Canadian sell-sider. "Stocks are off, oil's down so we're not seeing as much. Doesn't mean there's nothing out there. Plenty of interest, just a matter of getting those stocks back up. Next week we'll probably see lots more of these [mineral and oil] deals."

Leading the pack on Friday was a C$1.2 million unit offering from Vancouver, B.C.-based Oracle Energy Corp.

Oracle plans to sell up to 3 million units at C$0.40 each.

The units consist of one share and one warrant. The warrants allow for the purchase of an additional share at C$0.50 for the first year and C$0.60 for the second year.

The offering was announced late Thursday and on Friday, the company's stock gained 4%, or C$0.02, to close at C$0.52.

The proceeds will be used for working capital and new project development.

Oracle is an oil and natural gas exploration company.

Another oil company, this one from Albuquerque, announced the closing of a unit offering for $1 million.

Brinx Resources Ltd. sold 500,000 units at $2 each.

The units are comprised of one share and one warrant. The warrants are exercisable at $2.50 each for two years.

The proceeds will be used to buy 70% working interest in the Owl Creek oil and gas prospect in Oklahoma.

On Friday, Brinx's stock gained $0.02 to end at $1.88.

Poseidis' stock gains 9%

A day after announcing that it has received an $8 million equity line from Cornell Capital Partners, LP, Poseidis, Inc.'s stock was lifted by more than 9%.

The company's stock closed up $0.006, or 9.52%, to end at $0.069 Friday.

On Thursday, when the agreement was announced, the company's stock gained $0.003, or 5%, to finish at $0.063.

Cornell agreed to buy shares from Poseidis over the course of two years at 96% of the lowest closing bid price for five trading days after notice of a draw.

Poseidis, based in West Palm Beach, Fla., is a shell company looking to move into the mineral water bottling business.

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