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Anthony Buscemi has big plans for Buscemi International Inc., the tiny publicly held company that bears his family's name.
Six years after the stock was pulled off the over-the-counter market, Buscemi and his partner, Joseph Vicari, are trying to raise at least $2 million through a private placement of stock to embark on an aggressive expansion strategy.
"Our goal is to get to a Nasdaq company in 12 to 18 months, show a profit and have a large public offering in a few years," said Buscemi, the company president and chairman.
It's an ambitious goal for a $14 million company, traded only on the Electronic Bulletin Board since the end of January. Buscemi stock (BUSC), released at $2 a share, is now trading at about $2.25. There are more than 1.3 million common shares outstanding after a 1-for-10 reverse split at the shareholders' meeting last August.
"They are really tiny, almost too small for us to follow," said Gerald Kennedy of Kennedy Capital Management in St. Louis, a specialist in small, publicly traded issues. No local analysts follow the stock.
Buscemi has spent the past six years satisfying U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requirements to get the stock back on the market after his father's company, Original Buscemi's Inc., survived embezzlement by a longtime employee. A former controller for Original Buscemi's was convicted of embezzling $1 million in 1989. Paul Buscemi founded Original Buscemi's in 1955 and now is a director of Buscemi International.
The ex-controller, employed by Original Buscemi's for 12 years, was ordered to pay back $300,000. But it has taken several years and more than $35,000 in legal and accounting fees to reconstruct the books and SEC reports, Buscemi said.
Roseville-based Buscemi's is best known on the east side for its 14 Buscemi's Party Shoppes and Buscemi's Pizza and Sub Shoppes. But Buscemi plans to take the company national and international through two, possibly three, restaurant concepts.
Last September, Buscemi International bought the rights and recipes to Durango Grill, a concept developed by chef Keith Famie in...