UCBI Stock

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

Dec 15, 2007 17:39:30 GMT -4 coosa said:

This is the time to buy!

Coosa, you wrote this on Dec 15. On that day the stock the stock closed at $16.42/shr. As I write this its at $10.30 shr. If you had bought on that day, you would have lost nearly 40% of your money so far.

I bought because when it dipped to $26/shr, Tallent went on the internet conference and gave his word that the losses had bottomed out and that the problems which caused the drop from 36 to 26 had been resolved. He lied - and not for the first time - and until he explains why he lied, he just cannot be trusted to tell the truth... not to employees, shareholders, depositors or to the community.

[maddy]

You really expect a banker man to tell the truth??? LOL

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

Jun 2, 2008 23:44:00 GMT -4 @maddy said:

You really expect a banker man to tell the truth??? LOL

No ... you are right. I guess that would be overly optimistic.

Do you expect the person who is holding and controlling most of the money in North GA to be someone honest? I'd hope so.

I think we've all seen enough to be convinced that this particular organization's problems stem from a lack of a solid ethical foundation - not unlike finding yourself in the hands of someone who cheated their way through school... when the rubber meets the road they can't handle it without even more lying, cheating, excuse-making, etc.

[coosa]

Yes, you are right, it has really gone down a lot. do you think now is the time to buy??

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

Jun 4, 2008 10:10:13 GMT -4 coosa said:

Yes, you are right, it has really gone down a lot. do you think now is the time to buy??

I wouldn't. Here's why:
1) There is still apparently an ongoing investigation.
2) Look what happened to Worldcomm, Global Crossing, HealthSouth and of course Enron ... all because of high-flying, dishonest CEOs who were determined to cheat the shareholders.
3) If you are bent on investing in a bank stock, there are others with stronger positions - but its still very risky. Why not put your money in a stronger company?
4) As far as I know, there is still a class action lawsuit filed in NC against the banks and Tallent personally by 99 people for fraud and defamation. (and I personally heard him commit defamation during the conference call.)
5) Be certain that more revelations of dirty little secrets in the pipeline.
6) I'm not very confident that this bank will even exist in a year. Its pretty much damaged goods and not likely to ever recover under current management.
7) Management refuses to take corrective action -and the board either doesn't have the mental capacity to know what to do, are afraid of the secrets that would be revealed, or don't want the public to find out about the involvement of their employees in wrongful acts. At any rate, the necessary changes aren't happening.
8) This stock lost $26/share last year (for everyone except the insiders who bought at $10 and then immediately sold it.) If the stock loses just $5 from where it is today, the doors will likely close without warning.
9) There have been some very bad business decisions involving stock splits and post acquisition retrenchment. Why they insist on using a small CPA firm for their audits instead of a top world-class audit firm is anyone's guess... although I have a very good idea.

[shortcircuit]

United Community stock declines
Staff and wire reports • published May 28, 2008 12:15 am

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Shares of United Community Banks Inc. hit a multiyear low today after a Sterne Agee analyst said the Blairsville, Ga.-based regional bank faces a deteriorating real estate market in the Atlanta area and downgraded the company.


Adam Barkstrom cut United Community Banks to “Sell” from “Hold” in a note to investors, because of its exposure to the Atlanta area real estate market, which he called one of the worst in the Southeast.

Shares of United closed down $1.80, or 13.53 percent, to $11.50.

UCB had 22 branches in Western North Carolina as of June 2007 and 8.0 percent of the region’s bank deposits, the third-largest share.

UCB is one of a handful of banks with significant loan exposure to the large Village of Penland development in Mitchell County, which was shut down last year because state regulators said it was a fraudulent operation.

[summerose]

Hmmm....that doesn't sound good.

[coosa]

No, it doesn't. I hate quite a bit of money there, but it is FDIC insured.

[shortcircuit]

The FDIC is only as good as the money that it has. If several big banks go under and the FDIC bails them out then the it will go broke fast.

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

Jun 6, 2008 21:38:35 GMT -4 shortcircuit said:

The FDIC is only as good as the money that it has. If several big banks go under and the FDIC bails them out then the it will go broke fast.

That could happen but its not likely. You know, I was going to say that the funny business isn't on the depository side except incidentally... but then I remembered the period a few years back about reports of money being removed and replaced from people's accounts intramonthly. Folks didn't make much noise unless a check bounced due to a "bookkeeping error" followed by an apology and remuneration. It kinda makes one wonder how much can be gathered by taking a little bit from a lot of accounts for a few days - and what it can be used for.

At any rate, the lawsuits and the questions appear to involve schemes to produce phony, insured loans and defamation of the victims this time. Did I say Insured loans?

[summerose]

WOM, did you used to work at UCB? How do you know all this information?

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

Jun 11, 2008 9:09:25 GMT -4 summerose said:

WOM, did you used to work at UCB? How do you know all this information?

Holiday Inn Express?

Actually... I can't say much at this time except that my firm investigates financial fraud, money laundering and racketeering for a living. We're very very good at it.

[sometimeman]

WOM -
Paris has to be doing something with the money he gets. I feel like he shares some. Like giving the re appraisal to the higher bidder. And, maybe getting some back as a consultant?

Anyway the money goes someplace connected with Paris. How bout seeing if maybe the revenue department is interested?

You might be interest in looking into "Cobb County EMC"" and Cobb Energy" (Power).
The business managers at the EMC sit themselves up Cobb Energy and charged Cobb EMC for their services Kinda like getting paid twice to do the same job!

Like over at the school house, where the folks are paid a salary for their 40 hours plus they also bill double dip by getting paid from various grants. Somebody an't getting what they are paying for! You can't be paid from both sources for the same hours!!

[AskTheWiseOldMan]

You mentioned Cobb EMC/Cobb Energy before ... but I regret that I cannot comment on Mr. Brown's case... except to say that in the deposition he actually conceded to being paid FOUR times for the same work... Salary1, Salary2, Debt forgiveness, and Dividends on gifted stock. All in all its still far less that YOU-KNOW-WHO was paid last year for wrecking the life savings of people who were gullible enough to trust him.

We see this a lot in Chamber of Commerce executives who also serve on Industrial Authority boards or Travel/Tourism Boards etc. When the right and and left hand executives overlap, but the BODs don't, theres often double pay that nobody really ever authorized except the E.D. and the board of that particular group.

For example, we recently were hired to look into a similar situation with the a certain South Georgia Chamber of Commerce. The E.D. was paid $120,000 as Chamber Director as authorized by THAT board. Then he was also being paid $120,000 through the Tourism group (nobody but the Tourism board knew that) AND was being paid by the Industrial Authority (and nobody knew that either).

Needless to say, when we exposed this to the commissioners, he resigned rather than face jail time.

[bb]

Wow, WOM! I would have loved to be in on that investigation!