Believe It or Not

Who said Securities & Exchange Commission filings have to be dry and boring? One recent filing from a one-man Los Angeles operation called Toks Inc. has had investment professionals in New York laughing hysterically for the past week.

Toks, run by its owner/chairman/CEO/sole employee — Ade Ogunjobi, 41, a London-born naturalized U.S. citizen of Nigerian descent — filed a document with the SEC Oct. 9, seeking to roll up six of the largest U.S. corporations in a $2 trillion stock swap.

Toks' targets are a "Who's Who" of corporate America: General Electric Co., AOL Time Warner Inc., AT&T Corp., AT&T Wireless Co., Marriott International Inc. and General Motors Corp.

Quite a big chunk for a Los Angeles Community College dropout to chew, but Ogunjobi said that he's doing this not for himself, but for the targets' shareholders.

Although the filings stated that Toks has a $10 billion loan commitment from Banc of America Securities LLC, Ogunjobi admitted his "contact" with the bank amounted to some unreturned phone calls, e-mails and a checking account. Banc of America has denied any knowledge of him or his company.

In a sometimes rambling interview with The Wire, Ogunjobi ranted about lucrative stock options for corporate executives, which he said proves they don't care about shareholders. "I'm going to teach them a lesson," he said – for instance, divesting AOL Time Warner's cable and broadcast networks and its cable systems to vice chairman Ted Turner, and by selling off GE's MSNBC and CNBC cable networks.

Ogunjobi insisted that his filing was no joke. "I am serious," he said. "It's illegal to file a bogus claim."

An SEC spokesman would not comment on the filing, but several published reports said the federal agency was investigating the document's validity.

In Tune with the Times

Additions to The Concert for New York
— the Oct. 20 benefit show for the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — continued last week as Backstreet Boys, Mike Myers and Paul Shaffer joined the previously committed Paul McCartney, The Who, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, John Mellencamp, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Susan Sarandon, among many others.

Proceeds from the sold-out event at New York's Madison Square Garden, underwritten by VH1, Cablevision Systems Corp., Miramax Films and AOL Time Warner Inc., will go directly to aid victims' families through attendant charities, including the Twin Towers Fund. VH1 will air the four-hour event live and commercial-free. America Online will Webcast the event, slated to be simulcast on VH1 and Westwood One Radio networks.

The event's lineup is still evolving, but sources close to the show said last week that McCartney will be the opening act, and that various players from the Cablevision-owned New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty will also appear.

Sources said that organizers VH1 president John Sykes, Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and AOL Time Warner COO Bob Pittman are taking a very hands-on approach in the planning. But there was no word whether these execs planned to make any introductory remarks, or if Cablevision president and CEO James Dolan — a man known to play a mean guitar — planned to join the musicians on stage.

Your Money's Safe

Outspoken Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly has taken the United Way and several other charities to task on The O'Reilly Factor
during the last couple of weeks for not distributing the total $1 billion that's been raised for the families of victims of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"We're going to get you what you have coming to you. And we're going to try to make your lives as easy as possible," O'Reilly last Tuesday told three guests who lost spouses. Hundreds of his viewers apparently thought it was safer to send checks to O'Reilly than to charities like the United Way. But O'Reilly told viewers last Thursday that he was returning the few hundred checks he's received, including $30,000 from one company leader.

Beautiful Day in Kabul

The Web site f-----company.com recently posted a parody of The Weather Channel's Web site, which offered a weather forecast for Kabul that was illustrated with a mushroom cloud and showed the temperature at 3000 degrees.

That oblique reference to the U.S. military retaliation in Afghanistan wasn't as funny as spotting Sesame Street's Bert perched on Osama bin Laden's shoulder on posters carried by the terrorist's supporters in Bangladesh. (That image was apparently inadvertently lifted by protestors from another U.S. parody Web site, the since-discontinued "Bert is Evil.")

But it did spark a protest letter from The Weather Channel's senior counsel, Sheri Gates McGaughey.

"While we appreciate your interest in The Weather Channel," she wrote, "this unauthorized use of The Weather Channel Inc.'s trademarks, trade dress and look and feel is not allowed."

The offending parody was still on the site as of last Friday.