Ann: Titan Receives Increased Commitment to US$75M, page-51

monark to address your various points:
1.) Barings Bank raised millions of $s as did Lehman Brothers. Raising millions of $s is not a sign of success. In any case you are suggesting that Gulf South is successful (an assertion I doubt and you can't back up) but as you point out you are invested in TTE and the success of one is not necessarily linked to the other. Brokers tend to charge fees which go to the owners of the brokerage regardless of whether the investments are successful or not.
2.) 600MM and back to 60MM - so it was ultimately unsuccessful. I guess the question is whether you consider an increase in share price on the back of information that has ultimately proved to be incorrect success or not (both Maverick and American Energy), I don't consider it success. Bare in mind that as most capital was raised at over 60c and it is now 10c most value has actually been destroyed.
3.) Of course having a failure does not preclude future success but nor does it guarantee it, for every rags to riches story there are 10 riches to rags, or rags to rage stories. If it were that simple we would all just have to set fire to a pile of money to guarantee future success.
4.) Drilling wells is the name of the game in oil and gas, if you expect every one of those to be successful it is not the game for you. The issue is that with Simmons the failure has been repeated overstatement of reserves, first at American Energy then at Maverick. I am happy to take the risk of wells not encountering pay, I am not happy that announcements ultimately prove to be incorrect.
5.) Perhaps Simmons was let down by his team at American Standard all those years ago, but then you would expect him to have learned, yet the same thing happened at Maverick a year or so ago. Whatsmore he has brought he responsible consultant from MAD to TTE. Little bit too much of a track record for me. In any case what is the point in professing to be an oil man and getting paid for your expertise if - as in the case of MAD - reserves are overstated by a factor of 20 times while you are there? Any true oil person should have enough sense of the business to know when something is not right to that magnitude.