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You post simply leaves me stunned.
Good luck!
Yank
** BUMP ***
All the docket does is confirm where the original 10 cents/share was spent and why when the shares get cancelled there will be no further "gift" for equityholders who ARE the shareholders, now without legal representation because the game is over and even the lawyers adjourned to the 19th hole for Happy Hour.
Rotech Healthcare is insolvent.
Buying more shares at this point only provides an exit opportunity for "the fourteen-cent'ers" that bought up the float, months ago, hoping some high-risk/high-reward end-around might prevail.
Sorry it didn't play out well for many of you.
This could be a HUGE, screaming buy after the 26 m existing shares are cancelled, IF they continue to trade under a new symbol. If it goes private until NASDAQ re-listing in a year or so, there are better plays elsewhere.
***BUMP***
***BUMP***
Well, dude, I only worked there for 24 years and retired as a corporate officer a few years ago so I guess my info base is totally worthless?
Obviously you guys just want rationale to buy, not truth to determine whether to invest or sell.
Good luck. You will surely need it.
Tata!
I beg to differ. Exide has no such plan, nor has it ever had one that I am aware of. It doesn't have enough money to fund a comprehensive, workable plan.
If Exide had any brains at all, it would never have bought all those GNB smelters in the first place, and could have shut its own down before the remediation costs grew to such life-threatening dimensions. It's yet another example of jerks in positions of responsibility "kicking the can on down the road" for someone else to deal with, later on.
And how a B-O-D that knew Exide had years of huge environmental issues (they were in the 10-K, you braindead idiots) and yet allowed a solution-less posture of inaction to continue while the meter kept runnig just boggles my mind.
Simply incredible! "Business As Usual" in the Country Club of single-malt fine scotch and Cuban cigars.
"Nero fiddled while Rome burned." TOUCHE'!
JMHO.
Here's my best clue to look for in determining whether Exide has a future, or not, post-BK. Look for personnel announcements that select people with actual, core-market credentials instead of "experiments" with total battery-industry novices that have to learn from ground zero an entire industry. Exide already has some experienced, talented people with years of operating experience... a Phillip Damaska, as just one example, but there are many others. Why recycle some old name from a car or truck business to run a battery company that faces enormous EPA issues and major client losses?
Take a look at JCI who just announced a new CEO who was a 30-year JCI veteran who replaced another 30-year JCI veteran that led the company for the prior 7 years until reaching retirement age. There is leadership, continuity and knowledge that has remained consistent for around 40 years that contributed to growth, stability and NO BANKRUPTCIES.
Exide's Board is a pathetic anchor around the necks of a company in enormous peril. Too bad Jeffrey Gendell didn't flex his power to DO SOMETHING about Reilly's Country Club, IMO.
The restructuring group has solid credentials, from what I see. That's a plus, going forward. The fact that the CEO is being replaced "for other opportunities" is PR-speak for dumped for fresh faces and ideas. Another plus. My read on this early-on move is that it signals a likelihood for greater rather than lesser restructuring goals and the possibility that someone is FINALLY going to do something comprehensive and meaningful to take a company with both enormous assets and enormous environmental liabilities and actually remake it into a living, breathing, healthy organism instead of a critically wounded triage victim on life support. It will take time for the latter to play out, but I would be more encouraged than discouraged by yesterday's announcement.
All JMHO.
Bolch was neither the problem nor the solution. Exide's failure is systemic and generational. A strong case could be made in comparing Exide to J.C. Penney... multi-$B companies, long operational histories, outstanding brand positions, relatively simple trading environments (unlike technology areas), etc. That's on the plus side. On the downside, neither company maintained a bona fide business premise; JCP marketed inflated prices marked down as "sale" prices and Exide marketed bloated warranty periods and humdrum features as "technology" in absurd hyperbolic exaggeration.
JCP hired a geek from Apple to run a totally unrelated mercantile business; Exide hired a revolving door of non-battery CEO's to run a battery business. Both company's leadership then isolated itself from the mid-rank management that actually understood the company's strengths and weaknesses, instead drawing all their input from Boards and consultants that were even more dysfunctional and, at least in Exide's case, were also arrogant, effete and ego-maniacal, IMO.
The restructuring guys have good credentials, but they can only do their jobs if the B-O-D takes some final accountability for the second Exide BK and agrees to stand down when a new board can be secured and put in place by shareholders. This would NOT be a subset of the existing class action shareholder claims that revolve around the Vernon environmental "surprise".
All JMHO.
Exide hasn't even submitted a plan, yet, and no judge is going to rule for or against a BK until a comprehensive offer is on the table. It appears that the lenders and trade creditors are aligned favorably and the environmental stakeholders have their backs up. During the previous BK Exide was gifted a $67M clean up of claims estimated to be as high as $800M and was absolved of the rest, a very generous agreement that angered a lot of EPA types, by my recollection.
This is going to take quite some time to unravel which is why, I believe, there has been so little PR forthcoming on any of these issues and events. Its WAAAAAAAAAAAY too soon for the campaigning to begin.
Sorry, J.T., looks like the 15 cent to 30 cent ATM got its plug pulled by lack of volume. Mr. Market says: "No more freebies, you silly flippers."
So what's next? August 20th?
I think so.
JMHO!
WHO WAS THE IMBECILE THAT BOUGHT GNB and their disastrous EPA sites like Frisco and Vernon? Oh, yeah, that would be Bob Lutz and his stooge, Craig Muhlhauser.
But never fear, GNB believers, it will all be redeemed when Cathanode takes off, the Gould Champion 27 dominates the commercial truck business and Absolyte Technology (possibly the ultimate oxymoron) gains a firmer foothold. LOL! LOL!
The battery biz is a simple marketplace. Simple begins by not insulting and alienating your largest customer... Walmart... when your other, largest customers in OEM have crappy new car sales and aren't buying much.
DUH! What's hard to understand about that?
The estimates for the cleanup of the former GNB smelter in Frisco, TX are as high as $130 million. A few years ago Exide paid around $67 million to resolve a bunch of older, smaller clean-up sites. Then there is the future cleanup cost likely for Cannon Hollow, Muncie, Reading, Baton Rouge and on and on. And, of course, Vernon, California.
Got $BILLIONS?
The enviro-ship has finally hit the fan. Years of acquiring every swinging "D" in the battery biz has finally manifested itself in the inevitable... the cost of cleaning up the ship. Sorry, shareholders. Your board of directors let these acquisitions happen and they slept at the board table and collected their option awards for years while the meter kept running on all these inevitable cleanup costs built into a pyramid of catastrophic enormity.
All JMHO.
You did a lot of great work on that analysis, so thanks for sharing it and all its detail. If I remember correctly, the list of all consensual stakeholders agreeing to the pre-arranged BK is contained in the first day filings and was an attachment to Alsene's declarations. It showed all the noteholders and the names of corporate officers that signed off on the BK agreement. Wynnefield was not among them to the best of my recollection.
I could be wrong, J.T., but I do not believe Wynnefield holds any of the tier 2 notes.
Thanks, robb. My time is almost done here. Only came back for a few final comments. I just hate to see a bunch of small investors get taken by the lure of some projected $14 reward for a 14 cent stock like Rotech when the overwhelming evidence says the reward is going to be 4 cents or less.
There may be some good money to be made here, post-BK. It will take some time to get there if it ever does.
Best regards,
Yank
You and I both know that I said many of those things, they were IMO appropriate comments at the time I made them and remain truthful to this day. I NEVER said, implied or suggested that Rotech management played by the Marquis of Queensbury Rules or deserved any kudos for truthfulness, informational transparency or mathematics. In fact, I frequently stated the opposite. I am not even saying that their petition to end bankruptcy on August 20th is either fair or even proper jurisprudence. I am only saying that my read is that it is going forward and the game is over, at least for this phase of Rotech's charter.
I own no shares in this company, long or short. I have come close to pulling the trigger several times. I may, in fact, pull it BIGTIME when the dust settles and today's shares are cancelled and the next round begins under a new trading symbol and possibly with some new leadership. And J.T, is wrong in saying that I hate the company; I simply dislike the bullying tactics from Alsene since he took over, from what I have thus observed.
I actually do think that shareholders have gotten a raw deal, here. But that happens all the time. I have been on the receiving end of HUGE shortfalls in BK's elsewhere. I chose to learn how it works from these losses. I haven't lost since. Maybe you should try that?
Good luck.
Yank
Rotech's S/P has been on an express elevator ride downward since August, 2011 when it was above $4. There were ample opportunities for shareholders to exit until it collapsed in bankruptcy which should have been no surprise to anyone that can read a stock chart.
"Oh, poor me, I lost $4 per share." Really? Why is it always someone else's fault when an investor made a bad choice? I have made many poor choices, over time, and some have gone BK and I got nothing. WorldCom was the worst. I was stupid. I thought I knew more than the analysts and posters on the message board that kept saying Ebbers was cookin' the books... and I got hammered.
This judge has heard all this yammering, many times before, about the poor, hard-done-by shareholders that get squeezed in BK. Do any of you think he has any sympathy? I don't! It's all about the law. Shareholders come LAST. And opportunistic shareholders that bought on the brink of a zero share price get... DAH-DAH... zero!
JMHO.
I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but what the majority of the float was recently sold for plays an extreme role in Judge Walsh's decision. It is hard for the equity committee to bleat "UNFAIR" for the shares to be cancelled when they paid to next-to-nothing for them in the first case. What management proposed in the pre-arranged BK was 10 cents for each common share. Wynnefield bought most of these shares at 14 cents. And, today, that's about what Mr. Market says they are worth. Gee, imagine that!
In a BK, shareholders come LAST in priority. That's the law. It may suck, it may look unfair if you own common stock and it may stink if the BK was overblown in rationale and urgency compared to other forms of reorganization that could have been chosen. But that's the way the cookie crumbles in most cases... the shareholders get squat, their old shares get cancelled and a new era begins, post-bankruptcy.
There simply is no TOOTH FAIRY lurking in the wings at Rotech waiting to enrich today's common shareholders with some generous counter-deal, IMO. The dime "gift" has been spent on equity committee histrionics. The Fed seizure of records has yet to be quantified in costs... was around $7M last time... and the further decline in reimbursements as J.T. reported only make the situation more dire.
If Obus were going to rescue Rotech with some buyout of lienholders, unlikely based on their operating style as J.T. also reported, they would have done so by now and put all this costly legal juggling to an end. Nobody else has stepped forward in six months since Barclay's started shopping ROHI for sale. How come? Because as long as the debt is unrelieved, there is NO HOPE of Rotech ever making money.
It's not complicated, guys. You just need to get rid of the rose colored glasses and have a moment of Epiphany where you accept that broke ventures, no matter how large, go BANKRUPT. It's just like GM. It's just like Detroit. Rotech is bankrupt, and no combination of Santa, the Easter Bunny, Cinderella or Borat is going to give CPR to the sickly cadaver.
All JMHO.
Nelson Obus may well have recently become the world's largest penny flipper!
LOL.
The judge authorized $400K be spent on valuation because it keeps his hands clean with full diligence and complies with the equity committees insistence. It's just one more metric, not an offer to buy. Rotech has already stated that he cost of the equity committee actions will have to be paid for out of the 10 cent "gift" previously on the table.
This is a bankruptcy. There is a hierarchy of rights, starting with the first tier lienholders. They have agreed in this pre-arranged BK to extend note due dates and reduce interest rates. They are taking a hit. The second tier lienholders are trading the certainty of high yield notes for the murky value of common shares in a company that has never made money and whose reimbursements are sinking. They are taking a hit. The creditors that are secured are coming out okay IF they agree to maintain extended credit terms in a new Rotech, but the unsecured creditors may be getting cut out due to increasing costs of BK, post-petition. So, in a sense, and in the judge's eyes, all these stakeholders are taking a hit.
Now here comes Wynnefield. They bought and hold most of the float at $.14. The fact that they and possibly a few other biggies rode ROHI down from $4 was a business decision they made; they had ample time to bail and Obus elected, alternatively, to gorge himself on an even larger, super-sized portion of common stock. Why would they be entitled to some major bonanza beyond 14 cents? They have only held these shares for a few months.
The other stakeholders are taking a hit and assuming a lot of risk. Wynnefield is risking a S/T investment at 14 cents. This judge is nobody's fool. The August 20th date is when the consensual, pre-arranged BK deal expires and the process is plunged into the abyss. The judge will not let that happen.
JMHO.
Why does everyone have to hate anyone with a different opinion than theirs? In every trade, somebody is right and somebody is wrong. All of us know a LOT more about Rotech because a large number of us have dug up links and stories that are under the radar and not in company PR or on the newswires. I, for one, appreciate the info, even if it conflicts my position, somewhat.
This is now prodding $80, again. The "Living Wage" Boogieman is barking up the wrong tree. At least Walmart is producing J-O-B-S while almost everyone else is just sitting on cash.
Thanks, Wally.
I don't see any change in divvy, but I would be wary of an ancillary comment on book value in the release. Historically, AGNC has not been a volatile house with frequent surprises for investors.
Good luck next week!
Rotech did a good job arranging for forward financing. I have been critical of some of the gamesmanship, but I think that the stage is set for a recovery.
Patient investors who wait for the reissued stock stand to have a stake in a major winner, IMO.
Sorry to have bothered you.
My opinion remains unchanged and will be better assessed on 8/20.
Good luck to all!
YUP!
Checkmate.
J.T., your scenario #1 is the most likely outcome and the one I had in mind when I posted the other day to joey. The part you and I differ on is you, somehow, think today's common shareholders come out whole in a consummated CHH XI. I think the deal only goes through if the proposed debt for equity swap is completed and all the common shares are cancelled and new shares issued to the lienholders who are absolving Rotech of the legacy debt.
I will not celebrate if you eat crow for a third time, but I think the menu has been created, the avian entrée ordered and the table set for you to dine away until you call the waiter over to bring the check with the plaintive request: "Caw, caw."
The new shares that replace your cancelled 14 cent shares are the ones that are likely to be worth substantially more than your $14 estimate. You did a remarkable job on your DD and I agree with your future projections for Rotech. That's when I intend to buy... when the NEW shares are issued and the debt is wiped out.
This is exactly like the General Motors BK. This IS quasi-bigboard stuff, and the potential rewards for the right play could let others retire early, like I did, by daring to challenge conventional wisdom and running away from the herd before the cattledrive foreman turns 'em all into the pens at the slaughterhouse.
Here's my rationale, condensed "pinkie" style.
No PR since May. No SEC filings. No PR. No financials. No PR. Fed investigation. No PR. No share movement. No PR. No share volume. No PR. No share buys. No PR. No share sells. No PR. Costly legal wrangling. No PR. "Sealed" confidential filings. No PR. New contract affirmed. No PR. Page after page of court filings. No PR. Court date after court date. No PR.
This is like "The Silence of the Lambs."
The lienholders have all the info, all the momentum, the law and all the cards on their side. Obus has a lot of 14 cent shares. Not much of a contest.
JMHO.
If the common shares were initially worth something more than 10 cents, the equity committee only paid 14 cents for most of them so how much more could they really be worth? Then the equity committee filed so many court motions that the legal expenses have probably consumed most of the "equity"... be that 10 cents, 14 cents or whatever. What's left... 4 cents?
I do think that Rotech will take off after exiting BK and I think that the noteholders that gain ownership in the debt-for-equity swap will do quite well. The current shareholders who have next to nothing invested in Rotech in the first place will be left with either nothing or next to nothing when the dust settles and the present common shares are cancelled.
The Tooth Fairy left Wall Street when Bernie Madoff went to the Big House for an extended R&R!
GLTA.
"BYE"
Most of the float was dumped and re-bought by opportunists at around 15 cents. That says that the present market cap of $3.7 M is about right and no huge reward is due shareholders as they have little-to-no skin in the game.
As for the 10 cents, feel free to visit www.plainsite.org, put in Rotech and the file #2417600. The meter runs with each one of these filings. The equity committee spent the ten cents, already.
There is no Tooth Fairy, the dime is gone and the BK will be approved on August 20th. Wynnefield bet around $4M that they could bamboozle the noteholders and Judge Walsh. Looks like somebody knew when to hold 'em, and Wynnefield didn't know when to fold 'em.
Sorry if you or joey lose a lot on this trade. Still may be time to at least get your 14 cents out before the shares are cancelled.
Wait 30 days and see.
***Final Alert*** One month from today, 8/20/13 your common shares will be cancelled, there will be no $.10 and the common stock will be cancelled and worthless, IMO.
Just cleaning up some old business... "Here comes the Judge!"
Good luck, guys.
Bye!
I actually think that the Japanese would have more interest than the Chinese in purchasing at least part of Exide. Someone like a Yuasa of Japan might want to recapture the share of Toyota/Nissan/Mitsubishi/Subaru/Honda that migrated to the U.S. when car plants moved from Japan to beat the unfavorable Yen exchange rate and the oil-fired increase in ocean-going freight.
There was, I believe, some kind of gentleman's agreement for Yuasa not to do so, earlier, but my sense is that all bets are now off as all the old players have changed, as have the OEM production metrics that now favor JCI, not Exide.
China has not exhibited a strong penchant for buying U.S. companies, although the recent Smithfield deal flies in the face of that assumption. My comment on that one, when it happened, was: "Who would want to own that pig?"
LOL. Sorry, I couldn't resist!
Exide Corporation was a shaky and debt-laden but promising compendium of global battery assets when the Hawkins regime was sent packing to the Big House for license plate manufacturing and Bob Lutz took on the future for shareholders. "Doctor Detroit" the esteemed car-guy, decided that buying GNB was the ticket to restoring proper profitability and completed the acquisition that greased the skids for Lutz to anoint the GNB "Glitterati" to take over and run Exide and even shut down the old Exide headquarters in PA, moving all operations to Tom Minner's nirvana, Atlanta, GA. Nice move, Bob.
Then Mr. Lutz, now a CNBC Contributor ("Can I have your autograph?") rid the landscape of a team that took over 100 years for Exide to assemble from its domestic and overseas acquisitions and replaced them all with GNB "visionaries" who wrecked the company. Later, when the going got tough, Bob Lutz parachuted out of Exide and put on his best camouflage face paint so as to next run GM into BK, blaming Rick Waggoner all the way down to worthless common shares. Wow! A DOUBLE HEADER of collapsed industry icons! What a guy!
As long as Exide remains headquartered in/around Atlanta, the deranged ghosts of Stanley Gaines, Tony Sabatino, Mali Rao, Bill Beischer and the other genetically poisoned cadre of idiots from Gould National Battery and their ridiculous protégés from Pacific Dunlop will poison Exide's future and the prospects for shareholders in this company.
JMHO.
LOL!
When the rats leave the ship, there is usually another subterranean creature lower in the food chain that rises up to take the rat's seat at the board table.
That way, the "new" rat gets perks and option shares that outlive the interests of shareholders.
That's the way it works... "pork the shareholders, eat filet mignon; pork the shareholders, eat filet mignon." Why would this Exide BK be any different than the original Exide BK?
Rats always eat well. Shareholders of Exide always eat shi...
"Technology", anyone?
Exide cannot run away from its EPA issues by declaring BK and nothing will get resolved very fast since Exide is protesting any business plan to be released in early December. This is going to drag on into 2014. These are both points that I made earlier.
This is dead money for the rest of 2013, IMO.
Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom infamy was convicted on 9 counts of accounting fraud under S/Ox and was sentenced to 25 years in the Federal Pen. I know another CFO that only got 1 year for a similar violation, so sentences can vary.
Fear of this law is precisely why I earlier offered the opinion that the reason for delisting due to late-or-non-filing could well have been fear of getting the numbers wrong and facing criminal penalties for doing so against a backdrop of so many allegations. When GEO and Seeking Alpha launched their "campaign" they may have painted Longwei into a corner with no exit. The class action clowns will have to wrestle with who really is at fault for the S/P collapse... LPH or GEO/Seeking Alpha?
All JMHO.
The many suits filed have not been consolidated and the class action has not been certified.
Exide India is an independent company and Exide Technologies has no stake in it. It is a surviving remnant of the old Chloride Group, PLC.
It is a highly successful company in its region.
I did see that. IMHO, the largely boils down to risk and available options. During a 5 year cycle where many more mainstream investment options were unattractive due to the banking and housing meltdowns, the recession and sinking interest rate returns on short and L/T paper, mReits flourished as an investment of choice because little else was truly attractive. It was like "The Perfect Storm" and my portfolio hit its all time high because of it, but I find it hard to imagine the scenario ever repeating itself.
I think that the glory days for AGNC are over.