A penny-stock company pitching a $1.2B mixed-use project in Downtown Atlanta is working with a consultant with a checkered history: a developer who once settled SEC fraud charges over a failed amusement park scheme that helped push an NFL star into bankruptcy.
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Webstar Technology Group Inc. has said it plans to close this year on 10 acres near Ted Turner Drive and Whitehall Street and build a luxury complex of housing, hotels, retail and green space. It also hopes to develop a $650M family resort in Atlanta's exurbs.
But as Bisnow reported this summer, Webstar has left behind a trail of red flags — from nonexistent permits and collapsed land deals to SEC filings riddled with errors. Despite touting projects worth nearly $2B, Webstar is itself a micro-cap firm, trading at around 4 cents a share this week, with a market capitalization just under $16M. Its stock has lost about 80% of its value since its current executive team took over, filings reviewed by Bisnow show.
Its latest partnership sheds new light on the origins of its business model and raises more questions about whether the company’s billion-dollar bet will ever break ground.
Executives with Webstar have worked with Matthew Eugene White since 2022, when Thunder Energies, an earlier version of the firm, hired his company, Top Flight Development, as a consultant, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
In the early 2000s, White pitched an amusement park in DeKalb County called Grand Empire Palace & Resort, a $673M concept modeled on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The project stalled after grading work, and the collapse was one factor in former NFL running back Jamal Lewis filing for bankruptcy in 2012.
By 2016, the SEC accused White and associates of diverting more than $5M from investors into luxury stores and personal items. White, his companies and his partners agreed in 2017 to pay more than $4.4M, including a $150K civil penalty against White, to settle the case without admitting guilt.
Despite that history, Webstar General Counsel Donald Keer said White continues to advise the company.
“Mr. White has both residential and commercial development experience, a large network of business relationships and business acumen concerning family resort design,” Keer said in an email to Bisnow. “We were aware of previous issues and felt the contractual relations we established created a sufficient firewall between Webstar and Mr. White. As issues were identified, we took actions to ensure our shareholders are protected.”
White is not the only association to raise eyebrows. In 2024, Webstar hired Nigerian auditor Olayinka Oyebola & Co., then fired the firm this January after the SEC charged it with aiding and abetting a “massive securities fraud” by three U.S. companies. Keer previously told Bisnow that the firm fired Olayinka Oyebola after 60 days when it discovered the SEC charges, and the company has since hired an auditor based in India.
Webstar itself has cycled through multiple identities as its executives chased resort and entertainment projects. The company began in 2020 as Bear Village Inc., which promoted an amusement complex in Commerce, Georgia, complete with water parks, a 600-room hotel, retail shops, timeshares and even a 15,000-gallon freshwater aquarium.
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A rendering of Bear Village, a resort concept intended for Commerce, Georgia, pitched by Webstar Technology Group.
In 2022, the group took control of Thunder Energies, a cannabis startup, and recast it as a resort developer. That same year, the firm signed a consulting deal with White's firm, Top Flight Development. The deal paid the company $21K a month, granted it 15 million common shares valued at $450K and required White to build the company’s balance sheet to more than $200M. The target was never met.
By June 2024, CEO Ricardo Haynes and four partners — Keer, Eric Collins, Lance Lehr and Tori White — struck a deal to buy all of the preferred stock of Webstar, a software company, for $500K and transferred the intellectual property rights of Bear Village from Thunder Energies, which was delisted from the OTC market in July.
The ties extended to White’s children. In 2020, when the group operated Bear Village, the company listed Matthew D. White and Tori White as managers. Both moved on to Thunder Energies, with Tori described as director of real estate. When the executives purchased Webstar last year, Tori White was among the group that acquired all of its preferred stock, according to SEC filings.
Keer said OTC Markets Group, which monitors and regulates over-the-counter trading, later asked Webstar to sever ties with Tori White.
“Neither Mr. Matthew D. White nor Ms. White provided anything questionable, illegal or that provided us any concern,” he said. “Due to prior issues, that they were not involved in, it became necessary to separate our company from their services.”
Calls to Tori White, Matthew D. White, Collins, Top Flight and Lewis were not returned. An OTC Markets Group spokesperson declined to comment.
Matthew E. White's plan to build a resort outside of Atlanta was hatched in 2006 and went through two bankruptcies before the SEC filed its charges, accusing him and his partners of spending investor cash from a failed 2013 bond offering on “lavish shopping sprees at Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Versace, and Republic of Couture.”
To settle the complaint, in addition to paying the fine, White agreed to a permanent injunction from directly or indirectly “participating in the issuance, purchase, offer, or sale of any security,” barring him from working as an officer for a public company like Webstar.
He never built the Grand Empire Palace & Resort, but Webstar has nevertheless sought his counsel on its projects, which bear a striking resemblance to White's original pitch.
“Obviously, there is commonality in the advisors so there should be no surprise that Bear Village has similarities with Grand Empire,” Keer said in an email.
“Just because a project was not successful years ago, does not disqualify anyone from being successful in the future,” he wrote in a response to follow-up questions. “The research, time, and sweat equity is valuable to avoid shortcomings and pitfalls.”
Officials in Banks County and Commerce, Georgia, where Webstar has continued to pursue its Bear Village concept, said no plans have been filed and no representatives have made contact. Keer disputed that, saying engineers and consultants had been in touch, though he would not identify them.
He added that permits for the Forge site in Atlanta were already in place and that land disturbance permits would be filed after closing. The last permit on the site was secured in 2021 by the site's prior owner, Urbantec Development Partners, which planned a 3.8M SF life sciences-focused project in 2021 before losing the land to foreclosure.
“Large commercial project schedules take years to complete,” Keer said.
The company has walked back its claims that it is moving forward on its $650M Bear Village resort in Commerce. Its original land deal collapsed, Bisnow first reported, and Webstar's most recent quarterly filing with the SEC contains no mention of Bear Village.
“We have redirected our efforts to close on Forge Atlanta because it is a fully entitled and shovel ready project,” Keer said. “We are in negotiations for another parcel in Commerce, but we have not come to agreeable terms yet.”
In June, Webstar announced it had placed the Forge site under contract through a joint venture with Urbantec led by CBRE Vice President Jae Kim. The company has promised a $1.2B complex of housing, hotels, entertainment and conference centers, cultural venues, offices, retail and green space. Kim didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
Atlanta Councilmember Jason Dozier, whose district covers the Forge site, said Webstar hasn’t contacted him or the city to move the project forward.
“At the end of the day, we want to have development partners who have skin in the game,” Dozier said. “To have someone come in to acquire this large parcel and not be a very civically minded venture is worrisome. I’m very worried and concerned. Downtown Atlanta has languished for far too long, and having developers at the table who don’t have Downtown Atlanta’s interest at heart is taking a step backwards.”