National Student Marketing Corporation (N.S.M.C., NSMC) was the name of a high-flying company started by Cortes Wesley Randell, a young Washington, D.C. business consultant, in 1966 during the height of the 'Go-Go' 60s stock market. The corporation catered to the youth market and was touted by various Wall Street professionals. Through publicity from acquisitions and the late 1960s bull market, the stock rose from its Initial Public Offering price of $6 a share to $140. Several universities, including the Harvard endowment fund, invested in NSMC. After the crash of 1970, and after Randell had cashed out a portion of his shares, several Wall Street professionals were convicted of wrongdoing by the government. Some of these accused were later acquitted, with at least one spending some time in jail. Following an investigation of Randell's role in the stock crash, prosecutors alleged that he had misrepresented the company's earnings. He pleaded guilty in 1975 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stock-fraud conspiracy and three other counts of fraud. Investors sued Randell in civil court and were awarded $35 million.
Randell also went on to be Chairman and Director of a company called eModel that was alleged to be another scam.
Financial author Andrew Tobias was a young marketing director at NSMC and wrote a book about his experiences entitled The Funny Money Game.
Famous quotes containing the words national, student and/or corporation:
“Just so before we’re international,
We’re national and act as nationals.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)