• by Masha Geller , March 12, 2002

The biggest story of the day is L90. Now that eUniverse has scrapped their plans to merge with the company, many people in the industry are calling L90 a mini-Enron.

Their saga began right after plans of the merger were announced, and the SEC issued subpoenas to L90 and one of its directors (who remains nameless) requesting documents related primarily to the company's financial records. Rumors of L90’s fishy finances (including many stories of the firm’s inability to pay their bills) abounded and a VP of finance resigned on Feb. 4.

Things really heated up last Friday, when the company founder Mark Roah resigned from the board citing "personal reasons." And just this morning, L90 announced the resignation by John C. Bohan as President and CEO of the company and as a member of its board of directors. In addition, the company has "removed" Thomas A. Sebastian from his position as Chief Financial Officer and has placed him on “administrative leave,” whatever that means.

As if that wasn’t enough, Nasdaq said today that trading in the company had been halted pre-open at a last sale price of $1.21 and will remain halted until L90 has satisfied Nasdaq's request for additional information. That’s quite a plunge from February of 2000 when L90’s stock traded above $25.

The future really doesn’t look good, even though Mitchell Cannold, who most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Space.com, will replace Bohan as L90’s new President and CEO, and serve on the company's board of directors. L90 has also engaged Peter Sealey, a long-standing member of the board of directors, as a consultant to advise L90's management, and Steven Kantor, a certified public accountant, as VP of Finance.

We’ll keep you posted.