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I just posted a comment to this St. Petersburg Times article. My comment was the only one. If they received a ton of replies to this article telling them how Chase suddenly showed up in Florida, it might prompt another article, from another perspective. At any rate, this article should not languish with only my reply. This is an opportunity to get the story out.
J.P. Morgan has a long history of taking advantage of any and everyone that they come in contact with. It has an equally long history of being forced to settle with its victims for its misdeeds.
If you spend a few minutes Googling, "J.P. Morgan, settlement", you will find millions upon millions in settlements by J.P. Morgan to its victims. It seems that J.P. Morgan plays fast and loose with rules and regulations. When caught, they stall for as long as possible; then ultimately pay up....most likely for less than they took; but they do pay up. This makes me optimistic for our case. The following link is just one recent example.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2009-11-04-jp-morgan-sec_N.htm
Good call!
I Googled "Joe McMahon Jr., DOJ". It took me to a court document appointing the Equity Committee. At the bottom of the page, Joseph J. McMahon is listed as "attorney assigned to these cases". Also note that Joseph J. McMahon signed for the Assistant United States Trustee.
As your post stated, he is a "state trooper of the bankruptcy highway". I think that he is probably the guy who figured out that equity was going to get the shaft and he told the Trustee and she appointed the Equity Committee.
http://www.ghostofwamu.com/documents/08-12229/08-12229-2130.pdf
Nice insight into the upper echelon of the "good ol' boys club".
February 12, 2010...8-K...Cash on hand...$341,533.698... this is a lot of money. Does anyone know if most or all of creditors have been paid?
http://money.cnn.com/quote/sec/sec.filings.html?symb=CCTYQ&sid=1227&guid=7061376
When I referred to WMI, I was referring to WMI, the company owned by the shareholders; not WMI, the company operated by the corporate bureaucrats who hired Weil, Gotschal and Manges.
My point exactly!!
A couple of weeks ago I posted this link to a paper co- written by our Ms. Goldstein discussing ethical issues for bankruptcy practitioners. I found most interesting a citation referencing "Model Rules of Professional Conduct" (apparently a lawyers rulebook) "Rule 1.7(a)'s Prohibition against representing clients whose interests are "directly" adverse implies that an attorney may concurrently represent two clients whose interests are only "indirectly" adverse."
While I can find no evidence that Weil, Gotschal and Manges are currently representing J.P. Morgan, I have found numerous instances in the recent past where Weil, Gotschal, and Manges have represented J.P. Morgan. When we consider the longstanding business relationship between these two companies, it begs the question of whether WMI (a company which may very well cease to exist after this litigation is concluded) is receiving uncompromised representation. I think that Weil, Gotschal, and Manges were too greedy. They saw only the millions of dollars that they could bill and ignored the obvious conflict that exists. To my layman's eye, the representation being provided to WMI is inadequate at best. Why did it take sixteen months to finally figure out that the bondholders were knocking on the wrong door looking for money? Are we supposed to believe that they just figured that out? Weil, Gotschal, and Manges is reputed to be one of the top bankruptcy attorney firms in the world; with 21 offices the U.S., Europe and Asia. They continue to provide J.P. Morgan with stellar representation; not so much WMI.
http://files.ali-aba.org/thumbs/datastorage/skoobesruoc/pdf/Ck092-ch09_thumb.pdf
Everyone keeps beating on Brian Rosen. Wrong target!!! He is just Marcia Goldstein's stooge. She is running this show.
The Fox Business article is the closest to mainstream press exposure that this case has received. This story is number three most read story on Fox Business. If all interested parties visited this site repeatedly over the course of the next few days, the story would go to the top of the most viewed list. That in turn would make other regular visitors to that site read the article giving more exposure to our cause. We need to keep this article visible on Fox Business.
I try to not respond to my own posts. It makes me feel like I'm talking to myself. After I made the first post, I started to wonder if I could find the FAX number for Fox Business...FOUND IT!
I faxed them a note asking why they are not posting all comments. I suggested that if I can find their FAX number, anyone can. Possibly if their fax machine is suddenly overloaded with incoming faxes, they may decide to post all comments?
Fox Business: Nasty JP Morgan....Fox Business is really dragging their feet on posting comments on this story. The count of comments is only up to 82. The last comment listed is from. 02/09/10. I added my comment yesterday.
Your synopsis sounds good to me as a "vulture". Not so sure that pre seizure holders who have been robbed will go for it. I think that they (J.P. Morgan) will have to kick out more dough than that. After all, they finally paid Bear Stearns shareholders $10.00 after originally offering $2.00.
Killer!!!
Did you notice at the end of the 8-K, included in the "installment payments" list was $7,700,000 worth of Insurance policies, the premiums for which were paid at inception. They all cover the period from 12/1/08 to 12/1/14. This must be the payments for services paid years in advance that someone mentioned a few weeks ago.
I would think that these policies/services should be long cancelled by now. Shouldn't most of this money go in the pot?
Harry Truman once said: "The buck stops here." That slogan might well become the default for "the second most powerful woman in the world"; Sheila Bair, as this entire WAMU outrage could have never occurred without her complicity. IMHO her Republican head will be on a Democratic pike before this ends.
The point of the long term options is not to tie up your money for a long period of time, it is to give you protection in case your stock does not move fast enough. I usually don't hold for more than a month, usually much less, sometimes only a day or two.
Math mistake...the $8500 sale price should have been $9,350. (8500 X $1.10 = $9,350. That adds another $850.00 to the profit. Sorry for not checking my figures.
Options are my chosen investment (trading actually) method. I buy stocks on occasion, usually cheap distressed stuff or penny story stocks. I am in wamuq at the present with a fairly large position. I am invested in wamuq because I see the potential for an option like payoff. However, to make money to live on, I trade options. At the moment C options are dirt cheap. For the cautious trader, you can buy Jan 2011 $4.00 calls for .38. That translates to $38.00+$9.99+.75 per contract. That is less than $49.00 to control 100 shares of C until Jan 22, 2011. Is there anyone who is long Citi who thinks that it will be trading lower than $4.00 in one year?...Didn't think so. Assuming that C is trading at $3.30 at the end of trading today and you decide to get in on Monday and C opens unchanged, You decide to buy 1000 shares at $3.30. This costs $3300.00+$9.99 commission. I on the other hand take my $3300 and buy 85 Jan 2011 $4.00 call options. For the sake of discussion, lets say that Citi closes at $5.00 at the end of October. You sell your shares for $5.00+ $9.99 commission.You have made a nice profit of $1800. You have sold for $5100 minus $9.99 commission. .I decide to sell my 85 option contracts at the same time. Since the underlying stock is now trading at $5.00, my option contracts are trading at $1.10 or $1.15. The $1.00 is the amount above the strike price of $4.00. The .10 or .15 is time value because the options still have almost three months to expiration. I sell my 85 contracts at $1.10. That is $1.10 X 100=$110.00 per contract X 85 contracts equals $8500.00 minus $63.75 (.75 per contract X 85 contracts) minus commission of $9.99. My sale price of $8426.26 minus $3293.74 that I paid to open the position equals a profit of $5132.52. The profit on the option trade is $3332.52 more than the profit on the stock trade.
That's why I trade options.
Without going through all the numbers, I bought 300 C March 2010 $3.00 call contracts at the dip after the TARP repayment and sold on the bump early this month and I made a quick $3300. The profit on this trade was much less than in my example but the stock price only moved approximately .25-.30 in my favor.
If you want to make money and don't have a lot of money, options is the ticket. But, you have to be very careful, the options market WILL eat your lunch if you are not careful. I recommend LEAPS (Long term Equity Anticipation Securities) for the new option trader until you build some confidence and have a few winning trades under your belt.
One last thing. This is part of my personal strategy. I take out every penny of profit and put it in my money market. When my account gets low (I don't always win) I take out money from the money market and add to the account and continue.
At present I hold 230 CITI March $3.00 call contracts and 75 CITI March $4.00 call contracts. Today my March calls went up $1175.00. My March $4.00 calls lost $75.00 because the last trade was a sell and the bid on the $4.00 call is .01 less than the ask.
You can watch the C options for the next two months and see how I do. Sorry for the long post, hope this helps someone.
I got in a couple of days ago. I picked up 119,044 at .167. I'm an official card carrying vulture now.
I read "Wamued..The Story" last night. A very enlightening and disturbing read. Incredibly audacious and arrogant; not to mention illegal behavior.
Comeuppance is long overdue.
Call it a "GIFT" if you like; but gifts have to be paid for. If there is no money and there will be no money, who pays for the gift?
Make that "GIFT" large enough and you can probably get rid of those pesky equity holders.
A sticky with an acronym key would be nice.
I am a newly hatched vulture. As soon as my slimy little head popped out of the shell, I saw the prostrate form of Wamu laying there....I started pecking and pecking. So far I have stuffed myself with 119,044 morsels at .1676. Very tasty....I'm stuffed; but I'm ashamed to say, the meat was warm*....maybe this possum ain't dead yet!
*From what I understand, we members of the buzzard community don't eat live meat.
Thanks, I'm in...or I will be as soon as I sell something to get my hands on some cash. I guess that I'm a vulture to be.
I see that you are on the WAMUQ board also. I just started following WAMUQ yesterday. I think that it was just in the nick of time. I did a lot of reading last night. What a screw job. What are your impressions as someone who has been watching this, regarding a payout to common shareholders.
Sorry to post on the wrong board.
OK. Here is my take on what is happening. Systemax already has purchases the Circuit City name and they are operating on line.
Since they own Circuit City and Comp USA, it makes sense to me that they would want Firedog as they could use that installation service with both online companies,...if they could figure out a way to operate Firedog through their online operation. I have no idea how that could be accomplished. I think that BestBuy would be the logical company to acquire Firedog and use it in conjunction with Geek Squad as some people have speculated might happen.
I would think that in your particular situation as someone who does not own any CCTYQ; this could be an opportunity to make a great return on a speculative purchase of some shares. However, there are no guarantees here, you could very well lose everything that you risk. By the same token, the CCTYQ bankruptcy case could close and pay all the common share holders any where from a few cents to a buck or more for their shares.
Only risk money that you can afford to lose, because you might very well lose.
Here are a couple of things to think about that I have noticed.
CCTYQ is being very stingy with news releases. My trading account is with Etrade. When the Canadian Circuit City deal closed, there was no news release on ETrade. Now, the Firedog auction was a week ago and there are no results that I can find. I think; and this is just speculation on my part, that CCTYQ is accumlating a substantial amount of cash and they are trying (possibly at the direction of the bankruptcy court) to keep that information as low key as possible so as to avoid a
big boom in the trading of CCTYQ shares. Personally, I would love to see a CCTYQ trading boom.
I would like to see Jibberjabber post some more information on what is going on with the bankruptcy proceedings as I have not been following the filings in the case.
I will repeat here what needs to be remembered.
The Circuit City name has been sold and there is no relationship between Circuit City and CCTYQ.
CCTYQ will disappear when the bankruptcy case closes.
If there is money left after everyone (creditors,lawyers,Streambank, etc) gets paid, that money will be divided up among common shareholders.
Do not put money in CCTYQ that you can't afford to lose.
Hope this helps.
Don't buy into CCTYQ based on what you think the electronics market is going to do. CCTYQ is a bankrupt company that is not going to come back as an operating company. Those of us who own shares of CCTYQ are holding them in hopes that there will be some money left for common shareholders when the bankruptcy case is finally closed.
This stock is a speculative buy; but since you do not already have a position, you are in a perfect position to make a great return should you buy this stock at .01 and there happens to be money left after the bankruptcy closes. Good luck, but remember, CCTYQ disappears when the bankruptcy closes.
$147,000,000 for Circuit City Canada.
Here is some info that I found today.
Circuit City’s Canadian operations have been sold
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Published: July 3, 2009
Circuit City Stores Inc.'s Canadian operations have been sold.
The defunct consumer-electronics retailer, which had its corporate headquarters in Henrico County, said yesterday that the sale of its InterTAN Canada Ltd. to telecommunications company Bell Canada had been completed.
Bell Canada paid $116.8 million, plus $30.3 million for working capital, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
InterTAN operates 750 The Source electronics stores.
The Source will sell Bell products, including its home phones, Internet services, high-definition television services and mobile-phone service. Those products will be in stores by January, the company has said.
The Source stores, many of which are former Radio Shack locations, will continue to operate separately from Bell.
Circuit City bought InterTAN in 2004 in a deal valued at $284 million. The Source generated the equivalent of $498 million in sales last year.
Circuit City had been looking for a buyer since 2007.
In January, Circuit City put its Canadian subsidiary up for sale after deciding to liquidate all of its U.S. operations after being unable to find a buyer for them. Circuit City filed for bankruptcy protection in November.
The deal to sell InterTAN to Bell was originally announced in March, but the sides agreed not disclose details until after sale was completed.
By finding a buyer that will keep InterTAN going, Circuit City was able to do what it was unable to do in the U.S.
About 34,000 Circuit City employees in the U.S. lost their jobs as a result. The last Circuit City stores closed in March.
Fewer than 100 employees continue to work for the chain to wind down the company's business affairs.
In May, Systemax Inc. bought Circuit City's brand, trademarks and e-commerce business at a bankruptcy auction and began using the CircuitCity.com site.
Staff writer Louis Llovio and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
I found another article that said that the proceeds of the sale would be used to pay off creditors and the rest will be given to the company. I also found an article (dated 7/9/09) that reported the sale of a Circuit City store for $4.1 million.
Maybe someone knows what this does to the big picture.
I didn't find the quote; "we didn't pay anywhere near that price" in any of the articles that I read. I did find a quote attributed to an un-named Bell Canada source saying; "we paid considerably less than the $260,000,000 that Circuit City paid in 2004". (I found this quote in several different articles)
What my point is; is, that there is an gigantic window between $260,000,000 and $20,000,000. I would like to think that the final price will come in much higher than your estimate.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am in no way trying to shoot holes in your dedicated following of these proceedings and the innumerable documents that you have read. You are our best source of what is happening here.
I think that the Canadian Stores was the most valuable single asset and I don't think that the people who are still in the Circuit City corporate offices who are involved in the decision
making about divesting assets are giving stuff away. Most if not all of these people are probably common stock shareholders also.
Keep up the good work; I look forward to your informative and insightful posts.
I do tend to be an optimist. In this case I may be pushing it a bit, but I don't think by much. Here is my thinking on this.
InterTAN was a profitable retailer operating in virtually every major mall in Canada. 750 locations.
They had to seek protection because their parent company filed for bankruptcy in the US. When that happened they lost access to capital.
Then, their president resigned. Why would he resign instead of
just staying on the gravy train until the end....because he knew that InterTAN was a valuable retail commodity. So he quits and starts looking for someone to buy InterTAN. (More likely he and Bell Canada had worked out a plan before he resigned.) Why would Bell Canada be interested in InterTAN?
Because Rodgers Communications (a major Bell Canada competitor) has an exclusive contract with InterTAN to sell wireless, home phone, digital cable and internet service in all their stores thruout the country. This contract expires in January 2010. Does anyone think that this contract will be renewed.
This was a big move by a big company and an incredible coup over a major competitor. In one fell swoop they increase their national presence and dislodge a major competitor from 750 locations thruout Canada.
I think that the InterTAN/Bell Canada deal is going to contribute the largest amount of money to the bottom line....
Another thing to consider is that InterTAN is not competing with Best Buy at every location. By my count, there are only 56 Best Buy stores in the entire country.
Even after all liabilities are settled I don't see this as a $20,000,000 deal. I think that there is a lot more money here. If there was not a very large amount of money involved, the court would not be keeping the amount secret. The amount paid for the website and the intellectual property leaked out and that was almost $20,000,000.
I may be wrong and I sure don't know the amount but I would be willing to bet at least a couple of my 73,000 shares that it will be over $100,000,000.
Here is a little more info. According to one article that I found: In Canadian BK court records; INTERtan listed assets of $370,000,000 and liabilities of $110,000,000. This $260,000,000 difference makes me think that $190,000,000 is not unreasonable.
Point man for Bell Canada is Ron Cuthbertson, the former CEO of
INTERtan who resigned from his position in December in order to avoid a conflict of interest issue while he put together the Bell Canada deal. I found an interview with him where he said that this deal was not a cherry picking type of thing. This led me to think that the purchase price was in line with a situation where they were buying a profitable "going concern" for a price that was in line with the true value of the company.
How does the BK (US) records treat the INTERtan transaction.
I found this information by Googling "INTERtan profit and loss".
I have been lurking here for the last couple of months. I traded CCTYQ pretty actively early in the BK. Made a little money. Then the bottom fell out and I ended up upsidedown. I decided to hold and see what the BK would turn out like.
I don't see much discussion about the sale of INTERtan to Bell Canada. I have been prowling around and I read that they (INTERtan) had $5,000,000 in cash when the deal with Bell Canada went down. The sale price was not disclosed, but an un-named Bell Canada source said that the price was considerably less than the $265,000,000 Circuit City paid for the company in 2004. I also read that it would cost Bell Canada at least $190,000,000 to open 750 new stores. So...any amount less than $190,000,000 would be a deal for Bell Canada.
Jibberjabber; you seem to be on top of the BK....what do you think happens to that money; does it go into the pot? Also, do you have any idea what that amount is? I have done a pretty good bit of digging and it seems that no one is talking except for "considerably less than $265,000,000".