new member introduction

[kengoldin]

2.. REDEMPTIONS
For 15 years I have seen my name associated with unfulfilled redemptions on items from SB trading card product. Here is a timeline and facts.
in 1995 Due to the hockey lockout, basketball lockout, and baseball strike, and 80% of SB revenue coming from those areas (card and memorabilia sales) the board of directors of SB agreed to take on outside investors to boost the company's finances . A large percentage of the company was sold to TL Ventures, a subsidiary of publicly held Safeguard Scientifics. As a result, their appointee John White was named to the board as was another member of TL, and John White was appointed COO and later president in 1996. During late 1996 i became aware of a plan from the TL people to 'isolate Ken Goldin and eliminate his allies in the company. extend his contract as we need his name, marketing and creativity, but take him out of management decisions". With this knowledge, I knew what was planned for me, and in the spring of 2007 i infored the board that I did not intend to sign a new employment contract. At that point, they tried aggressively to keep me. In July of 2007 i negotiated a deal with Frontier communications to allow them to buy their way out of a phone card contract with SB for approximately $8 million in cash, 1 lump payment. I flew up there, got a check. The company deposited the check, and made an announcement. the following week, feeling I left the company in good financial steed as it had plenty of money to operate, I wanted to leave on a good note and rather than wait till 12/31/97 I sent a letter to the board resigning in August of 1997. Unfortunately for me financially, I had never sold stock, and pretty much left the company with the same amount of money in the bank as i started in 1987.
After my resignation, John White of TL Ventures was named CEO (he was president at the time). Instead of using the money from frontier for operations, inventory, salaries, etc. He and the board decided to pay off long term bonds that were NOT DUE FOR ANOTHER 5 YEARS. They took this action so that the company would remain listed on NASDAQ and they would not be forced by their auditors to write down their investment.
Well, as you can imagine, John White and the others did not know how to run a sports card and memorabilia business, so when it became time to fulfill redemptions for 1997 All sport PPF (and any other products that were issued by them after i left...have no clue how many issues there were) they decided the company needed the cash, so they started selling some of the items that had been set aside for the redemption instead of redeeming them. When things snowballed horribly in march of 98, and they filed bankruptcy, the court said that the redemption holders were basically last in line creditors, so all of the remaining redemption items were put back into inventory (they previously were seperated out into their own section of the warehouse) and sold at auction.....meaning any un-shipped redemptions at that time would never be filled.
I was a very identifiable and well known figure associated with SB, however Not only was i was not there when this occurred, but unfortunately the issue has been an erroneous thorn in my side for 15 years.
ALL OF THE ABOVE. is documented in financial reports and filings from SB, and can be verified from long time SB employees who are still in the industry, as well as articles.