Audio By Carbonatix
What’s the best way to garner a bunch of attention for a terrible idea? Do what Mark Kirkland did and get a fraudulent money manager to invest millions of dollars. When that money manager gets sued by the SEC, bingo, national headlines.
Kirkland created the Candwich under a company called Mark One Foods. The product, a canned sandwich available in such enticing flavors as PB&J and BBQ Chicken, has yet to hit shelves. But when it does, it promises to be the latest advent in What-The-Fuck consumerism, the ranks of which swelled this week to also include a lasagna sandwich and a foot-long cheeseburger.
The SEC’s lawsuit, which was filed here in Denver, concerns a Utah man named Travis Wright, who took $145 million of investors’ money allocated for real estate and dumped it into such winning concepts as the Candwich. Who knows, maybe he was lured in by the promise that this durable good would save lives in a natural disaster. Or maybe he thought the promised candy surprise in the package would help the thing fly off the shelves. Regardless, the investors were a mite upset when their returns fell far short of Wright’s promised 24 percent — and now, not surprisingly, they’d like their money back.
Kirkland’s pressing on, however, saying he never really saw much of Wright’s promised money, anyway.
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The irony? After the field day the media is having with the Candwich, it will probably sell.
And maybe that was the plan all along.
