The drama at Stinger Systems (Pink Sheets: STIY) is really too good for Wall Street. It should be a Fox reality show. This week, the CEO and his top lieutenant left the company after, by my math, less than one week at the helm. Best of all, the announcement was hidden at the very bottom of a suspiciously upbeat press release.
Stinger, you'll remember, is a would-be competitor of stun-gun king Taser International (Nasdaq: TASR ) . For investors, the trouble with Stinger is that it was a tiny, unprofitable shell company until the firm started releasing a lot of PR about its hot upcoming product, at which point it became a very expensive unprofitable shell. Toss in a CEO with a dubious history, and you had. Well, I'm not sure what you had -- lots of words come to mind -- but let's just say it looked to me like an ideal way to lose money.
This week, Stinger says it is introducing its long-awaited stun gun, the one that will allegedly outdistance anything Taser has to offer. There are a few flies in that ointment. The first one is that Taser introduced a long-range cartridge capable of firing 35 feet. That takes away the only purported advantage that Stinger ever had, because now, police departments can keep the stun guns they know and trust and be able to reach subjects at a longer range in the tiny minority of situations that call for it.
Here's the bigger problem, buried at the very end of the release. Ex-Smith and Wesson Holdings (AMEX: SWB ) executive Roy Cuny has left the company. No explanation was given for the departure. For those of you keeping score, yes, this is the guy who fired what looked like a shot across my bow, because I happened to point out some inconvenient facts about CEO Robert Gruder's past performance. Cuny is the same guy who was to have taken over as CEO on March 15 because Gruder decided, after a few months with Stinger, that he "needed more family time."
Cuny told the Massachusetts paper The Republican that he resigned Feb. 28 because "This opportunity did not ultimately meet my personal goals or personal standards."
If that's true, then Stinger sat on this news for nearly a month before burying it at the bottom of yesterday's press release. (I don't see any SEC filings for Stinger after Feb. 8).
If you ask me, the evidence suggests that the spit hit the fan earlier last month, when Stinger suddenly pulled a registration statement that it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission only one day before, for no stated reason. The statement shows that Stinger had been planning to pay Cuny $300,000 per year. He was also promised 500,000 options at a strike price of $1. If you think that's sweet, read the rest of the registration statement and see how Gruder's family members have deals that can get them Stinger stock at a mere $0.40 per stub.
So, in one sense, Stinger is back where it was a couple of months back -- as a tiny company with an unproven product, an entrenched competitor, and a questionable CEO. But in another sense, it's much worse, because Taser's already matched Stinger on range and video recording. Will Stinger be able to sell the $1.6 million worth of stun guns it's agreed to purchase from an unidentified third-party manufacturer? Good question. Soon, we might see some answers.
As for the stock's 40% rise over the past couple of days? That just goes to show how easy it is to attract good old, nearsighted Joe Bagadonuts via PR and a thin float. Since we can't short this puppy -- and believe me, I wish we could -- the only thing for a Foolish investor to do is grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show.
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At the time of publication,
Seth Jayson
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