SEC Company Response from HEALTH DISCOVERY CORP (CIK 0001141788) — Nov 14, 2005
HEALTH DISCOVERY CORP (CIK 0001141788)
Date: Nov. 14, 2005 · CIK: 0001141788 · Accession: 0001167966-05-001616
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File numbers found in text: 333-62216
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CORRESP
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filename1.htm
Response to SEC Comments
Powell
Goldstein, LLP
One
Atlantic Center
Fourteenth
Floor
1201
West
Peachtree Street, NW
Atlanta,
GA 30309-3488
Tel:
404-572-6600
Fax:
405-572-6999
November
11, 2005
Via
EDGAR and Overnight Delivery
For
Commission Use Only
Larry
Spirgel
Division
of Corporation Finance
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
450
Fifth
Street, N.W.
Washington,
D.C. 20549-0308
Re:
Health
Discovery Corporation
Form
10-KSB/A FYE 12/31/04
File
No. 333-62216
Dear
Mr.
Spirgel:
Thank
you
for your comment letter, dated October 12, 2005, issued by the staff of the
Division of Corporation Finance with respect to the Form 10-KSB/A referenced
above with respect to Health Discovery Corporation (the “Company”). On behalf of
the Company, our client, we have prepared this reply to the comment letter
and
to questions raised in our subsequent conversations with Gopal Dharia, Yvette
Lyon and Carlos Bacho.
For
your
convenience, we have copied the comment into this letter and included the
response below.
Comment:
Note
K-Stockholders' Equity, page F-16
We
note that you are required to register the shares underlying the warrants issued
in connection with the private placements in 2004 and 2005. We also note that
if
the registration statement is not declared effective within 120 days of March
10, 2005 you are required to issue additional shares and warrants equal to
one
percent of the number of shares and warrants purchased by such participants
for
each 30-day period beginning on the 121st day until the registration statement
is declared effective and that beginning September 7, 2005, the number of shares
and warrants to be issued will increase from one percent to two percent for
each
30-day period until the registration statement is declared effective. Therefore,
we believe that under paragraph 20 of EITF 00-19, it is not appropriate to
assume net-share settlement as the number of shares required to pay the penalty
is essentially indeterminate. Accordingly net-cash
settlement should be assumed. In view of that we believe that you should amend
your financial statements as follows:
Larry
Spirgel
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
November
11, 2005
Page
2
·
Classify
the warrants as a liability, initially measured at fair value with
subsequent changes in fair value reported in earnings as long as
the
warrants remain classified as
liabilities.
·
Classify
all previously issued warrants and options to non-employees as a
liability. This is due to the fact that as a result of the issuance
of the
warrants in the private offering, it is not appropriate to assume
that you
will have an enough number of authorized and unissued shares to
shares
to
settle the contract.
Response:
To
recall
the facts, the Company raised approximately $3.7 million in two different but
similar private placements, beginning in the fall of 2004 and concluding in
March, 2005. Each placement was comprised of a unit, consisting of one share
of
common stock and one warrant to acquire a share of common stock. With respect
to
the second private placement, each securities purchase agreement was an
independent agreement and not dependent on any other. There was no minimum
amount of funds that the Company had to obtain or put into escrow before the
purchases were binding. Substantially all of the purchase agreements were
identical. However, the final 7 investors (the “Investors”) negotiated
liquidated damages that obligated the Company to issue shares of unregistered
common stock if the Company did not file a registration statement within 60
days
and if that registration was not declared effective within 120 days. These
7
investors purchased 6,812,500 shares and an equal number of warrants. All 7
of
these sales occurred in the first quarter of 2005. The Company has satisfied
the
first obligation - to file the registration statement; however, the registration
statement has not been declared effective due to the accounting concerns raised
by the Staff in connection with the review of the Company’s 10-K/A. Accordingly,
the Company continues to satisfy the liquidated damages obligation. As we have
discussed with representatives of the Staff on several telephone calls,
the
Company was asked to address two different concepts with respect to these
liquidated damages.
Indeterminate
Number of Shares
The
first
issue representatives of the Staff raised was whether the number of shares
to be
issued as liquidated damages was indeterminate thereby requiring an adjustment
to the financial statements under EITF 00-19. The Company believes that based
on
the wording of the contracts, the maximum number of shares it might be required
to issue is determinable.
The
Company must issue shares with respect to both the shares and warrants purchased
as set forth in Section 3.1, which states:
The
Company shall:
a.
subject
to receipt of necessary information from the Purchasers after prompt
request from the Company to the Purchasers to provide such information,
(i) use its best efforts to prepare and file with the SEC, within
60 days
after the close of the Offering (the “Final Closing Date”), a registration
statement on Form SB-2 (the “Registration Statement”) to enable the
public, unrestricted resale of the Shares and the Warrant Shares
(and
shall include in the Registration Statement or promptly file
an
Larry
Spirgel
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
November
11, 2005
Page
3
amendment
to the Registration Statement to register, as appropriate, any additional Shares
or Warrant Shares issued pursuant to Section 3.1(a)(ii) or (iii) or Section
4.6)
by the Purchasers from time to time, and shall use its best efforts to ensure
that the Registration Statement is declared effective within 120 days of the
Final Closing Date, and (ii) in the event that the Registration Statement is
not
filed within 60 days of the Final Closing Date or declared effective by the
Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) within 120 days of the Final
Closing Date, then the number of Shares and the number of Warrant Shares sold
to
the Purchaser pursuant to this Agreement shall be increased by one percent
(1%)
for each 30-day period beginning on the 121st
day
after the Registration Statement was to be filed or declared effective until
the
Registration Statement is filed or declared effective, as the case may be,
and
(iii) in the event that the Registration Statement is not declared effective
by
the Securities and Exchange Commission within 181 days of the Final Closing
Date, then the number of Shares and the number of Warrant Shares sold to the
Purchaser pursuant to this Agreement shall be increased by two percent (2%)
for
each 30-day period beginning on the 181st
day
after the Final Closing Date until the Registration Statement is declared
effective. All Shares and the replacement Warrant(s) to effect Section
3.1(a)(ii) or (iii) will be delivered within ten days of each
delinquency.
The
Company’s obligation to satisfy the registration statement expires once the
shares are sold or when there are no longer any transfer restrictions under
the
Securities Act. Section 3.3, entitled “Termination of Conditions and
Obligations,” states:
The
conditions precedent imposed by Section 2.2 or this Article III upon the
transferability of the Shares and the Warrant Shares shall cease and terminate
as to any particular number of Shares and Warrant Shares when such shares shall
have been effectively registered under the Securities Act and sold or otherwise
disposed of in accordance with the intended method of disposition set forth
in
the Registration Statement covering such shares or at such time as an
opinion of counsel reasonably satisfactory to the Company shall have been
rendered to the effect that such conditions are not necessary in order to comply
with the Securities Act. (Emphasis added).
Because
the obligation has a temporal limitation and the formula for computing the
liquidated damages is a function of the passage of time (unlike the example
in
EITF 00-19 para. 22), the Company can compute the maximum number of shares
it
may be required to issue under Section 3.1.
The
determination of how long the liquidated damages continue differs for the shares
and warrants. With respect to the shares, an opinion of counsel that the shares
are not subject to Securities Act restrictions can be issued once the two year
holding period has lapsed. Accordingly, the maximum number of shares required
to
be issued pursuant to Section 3.1 of the Securities Purchase Agreement is
2,588,750 shares.
Larry
Spirgel
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
November
11, 2005
Page 4
The
warrants issued in the Company’s Round II Private Placement expire on December
31, 2008. Assuming the warrant holder exercises his warrant at the latest
date
possible, or December 31, 2008, in accordance with Rule 144, the warrant
holder
would be required to hold the newly exercised shares for an additional two
years
before he can freely sell or transfer the shares. Thus, the maximum amount
of
time the
Company would be obligated to issue penalty shares as specified in Section
3.1
of the Securities Purchase Agreement would be through December 31, 2010 and
the
maximum number of shares required to be issued would be 7,221,250. (The attached
spreadsheet illustrates the computation for both the shares and warrants.)
The
maximum number of shares implicated by the liquidated damages provision can
be
determined and is 9,810,000. Together with all outstanding shares and derivative
securities these shares are less than the number of the Company’s authorized and
unissued shares. Accordingly, the Company does not need to amend its financial
statements.
Liquidated
Damages as a Penalty
As
we
discussed with representatives of the Staff, the Company believes recording
the
non-cash liability related to the warrants issued to the Investors is not
material to the Company.
In
recent
conversations, the Staff has articulated its position that pursuant to EITF
00-19 the Company should consider recording the fair market value of the
warrants acquired by the Investors as a liability and mark-to-market those
securities until no further liquidated damages could be incurred by the Company.
The Company views the value of those warrants as immaterial, however, and
suggests that one solution is to address the issue prospectively in its filings.
To that end, attached is the Company’s computation of the Black-Scholes value of
the warrants, which assigns no value to the warrants at September 30, 2005,
and
$0.01 per warrant at June 30, 2005 and March 31, 2005 (for an aggregate value
of
approximately $68,000).
Assuming
EITF 00-19 controls, the Company believes that recording the fair market value
of the warrants on each of its previously issued quarterly reports would not
be
a material change requiring a restatement of those filings. Rather, the Company
proposes that one solution is to record the liability in its quarterly report
for the three-month period ending September 30, 2005, and then mark-to-market
each quarter, starting with the September 30, 2005 financial statement. At
March
31, 2005, the Company had total assets in excess of $4,450,000 and total
liabilities of almost $2,400,000. The non-cash charge of $68,000 would have
amounted to 1.5% of assets and 2.8% of liabilities. In neither case would the
amount be considered material. (The percentages are comparable at June 30,
2005,
and at September 30, 2005, the warrants have no value pursuant to the
Black-Scholes formulae due to the significant drop in the stock price.)
Acknowledging that materiality is both qualitative as well as quantitative,
inclusion of the additional amount of the liability would not have shifted
the
quarter to a profit from a loss, affected whether the Company achieved expected
results, affected whether executives qualified for performance bonuses or any
of
the other characteristics to which one looks to determine if a change were
material. Finally, the charge would be a reclassification of an entry that
is
already included in the financial statements. For these reasons, the Company
suggests that there is no need to restate its prior financial statements and
requests your concurrence in its analysis.
If
you
concur with the Company’s conclusion that a restatement is not necessary, the
Company will seek to amend the purchase agreements with the 7 investors to
eliminate any prospective liquidated damages in order to ensure that the issue
is completely resolved. Alternatively, if the concurrence that a restatement
is
not necessary is dependent on the Company first obtaining these amendments,
the
Company will immediately undertake seeking the amendments.
Larry
Spirgel
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
November
11, 2005
Page 5
We
trust
this response has addressed your concerns. Please do not hesitate to let us
know
any additional questions or comments that the staff may have. Thank
you.
Very
truly yours,
/s/
Todd Wade
Todd
Wade
For
Powell Goldstein LLP
cc:
Stephen
D. Barnhill
Robert
S. Braswell, IV
Calculation
of Maximum Number of Shares to be Issued
Total
Shares w/
Months
1-4
Months