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Jetsfan... Actually if you read the court papers you will see that not all of the Plaintiffs have agreed to "the settlement".
In fact all that has happened is that the plaintiffs have agreed that there are certain portions of the proposed settlement that will not require any additional information to be placed before the court.
There are two area about which the plaintiffs or intervenors have said that they will be placing additional information in front of the court.
The judge has yet to rule on ANY of the proposed settlement.
Methinks you jump to conclusions based on very little evidence.
I do agree that the price of .106 represents a potential profit when the dust settles.
Gyspsy,
On thinly traded stock such as MOSH I'd expect your new high bid to be reflected.
I buy at the bid on this stock most of the time when I buy. It frequently takes a while to get a fill, sometimes never fills.
If you want a fill quickly place your order at the ask, otherwise be prepared to wait.
Can anyone remember who or where there was a post about Texas Trust Law preventing the awarding of attorney's fees unless there was a finding of guilt against the trust?
I have looked through 800 posts so far and haven't found it.
I'm not a premium member so the message search function doesn't work for me.
Thanks
Steady_T
Shisya... Two things....
First, I agree that that the "For" argument is not that strong.
Second I disagree with your assessment of all parties having a similar number of what the property is worth.
What the property is worth is a relative term. It really means "What the property is worth to the individual bidder".
Lets say that natural gas is what my company is interested in. I have other wells in the area that make the infrastructure costs lower because they are spread over more wells. Then the property is worth more to me because it suit my particular requirements.
Another company might be interested but not have any other wells in the area. They might not have a lot of cash available so they would have to borrow the money so funding costs would be higher for them.....the price they would be able to pay and still make money on the property would be lower.
The other argument about auctions is the Ebay example....there have been many auctions where people have paid more than the cost of an item at retail.
Of course there is no "retail" to compare to in this case, but the example still is instructive.
Lets hope that the properties don't go up for auction.
As far as I know there is no minimum bid..... There is a requirement to post $750,000 prior to bidding. As I understand this requirement, it is there to screen out folks from bidding that don't have a minimum of resources available..... sort of a serious bidders only requirement in a tangible way.
To address the preferred bidder clause:
There are two arguments I can see aside from the increased opportunity for collusion. One for and one against.
The Against argument works like this.
The preferred bidder has the option of seeing the high bid and choosing to match it and thus win the auction.
Since preparing a bid for an auction like this one one has real expenses associated with it, a bidder may well conclude that what would have been a winning bid may well be matched by the Preferred Bidder. Thus making all of the expense a wasted effort when it otherwise would not have been.
The net result is a higher level of uncertainty in a process that is already uncertain. That may cause an otherwise serious bidder to not bid at all, with the resulting lessening of price pressure on the bid process. that is a lower winning bid.
The For argument works like this.
If a company has decided that they desire this property and recognizing the Preferred Bidder clause, they might increase their bid price to make it unattractive to the Preferred Bidder to match. This would result in a bid that is higher than they might have made without the Preferred Bidder clause.
Of course this all appears to be moot. A little research indicates that the preferred bidder may not have significant resources available to it, so it appears that if the price for the properties gets much over the fire sale level, the Preferred Bidder won't be able to match anyway.
If you had your secret decoder ring........
I made a post before going thru all of the others and found out it was redundant. I could blank it but not delete it.
That was a pun..... on your me, myself, and I comment.
Actually, that should be... YOU ARE THE MEN.
Gee.... Do you always get depressed when you drink, or is this an aberation?
This is far from over, however, do what you feel is right.
Oh and I'll disagree with you that the settelment isn't that bad.
Patience Grasshopper. This will wind up on its own schedule not yours.
If you look at the volume over the last few weeks, it has increased, but not enough to indicate that a large position is being accumulated.
Besides, if they accumulate over 5% they have to file with the SEC and we haven't seen that yet.
You raise an interesting point that I hadn't considered.
Having a preferred bidder does create a situation that is more vulnerable to manipulation.
I am not in favor of the preferred bidder provision. I just don't see it as the complete evil that many seem to.
A far as that goes, my hope is that we never have to worry about that provision in the first place, that the settlement as proposed gets thrown out, we retain the properties, and the trust lives on.
Why would you want to reduce the number of people bidding?
The more bidders, the likelyhood of a better price increases.
Everyone talks about this being rigged or a steal.....The bidding process is open to all who wish to bid.....The highest bidder will win if the properties are sold.....
I agree that the preferred bidder clause has the effect of reducing the motivation of the preferred bidder to bid higher because in effect he gets to match the highest bid and win.
Even so, he still has to match the highest bid.
If these properties are as much as we suspect, there will be several serious bidders.
You send it to the defense because it saves the court copying costs and time. It also makes them aware of the opposition to their proposal prior to the court hearing.
There is nothing sinister about it.
You file a copy with the court and a copy with the defense.
In a court hearing everybody gets to see everybody elses cards prior to the hearing. It's a principle of the system.
This copying of the leters is part of that principle being followed.
You are assuming that no other entity will be interested in bidding for the properties......The last bid process was no bid due to the court case and the clouded title resulting from it.
This time around the court will have approved the settlement prior to any auction so there will be no clouds over the title.
The defendents can't know that no one will bid.
We can agree on that.
That was not selfrighteous tripe.... That was in response to Instructamba comment that additional legal representation for the intervenors is likely to start costing money.....
He is correct, if anything of substance is going to be done, it will take an attorney who is getting paid. I don't expect Instructmba to pay for it out of his pocket alone.
Who do you think is going to foot the bill?
I'm not happy with the 19 Mil settlment (not 19 cents)...... I don't for a second think that is all that will be forthcoming.
That is why I have bought more shares since the drop from .37
My guess is that the minimum we will get when the dust settles is .50..... That is based on the information that is available to us all, nothing else.
My perception is that this investment has always had a high risk factor associtaed with it. We, as outside investors not paying for the suit, have little control over events and are basically along for the ride.
If you feel that your rights are being infringed, you have two choices..... post a lot on a stock board, which does very little to affect the situation but may amke you feel better, or start writing chacks, which can materially affect things. That is the reality of the situation. Most people don't like to admit they are powerless in a situation, but the truth is we mostly are.
I may send Weigand et al. some money if asked, depending on what additional information is discovered.
Mostly, I'm waiting to see what additional informaion comes up.
You are correct, there is right and wrong...... Unfortunately those things don't magically get enforced.
In this case, someone had to find attornies, pay retainers, to get this situation of right and wrong before a court.
I don't have the money to do that. Do you?
As far as getting representation for the rest of the MOSH holders via Instructmba and Weigand, I'll be interested to see how many of the posters here that are crying foul and sellout, follow up their convictions by sending in a check for $1000.00 to support the intervenors.
Ican70 ..... There is no such thing as a guarantee when you step into a court room. There are only probabilities.
The attorneys will get paid. The question is by who?
The choices are 1: the trust 2: the plaintiffs or 3: the defendents.
While many here will think that the attornies should not get paid due to the APPARENT lack of a big settlement, it would be well to remember that without MOSH LP and the W group, there would be NO SETTLEMENT AT ALL.
instructmba Thanks for the update.
I suspect you will learn more between now and then.
Have you had any contacts with the MOSH LP legal team since you intervenor status was orignially granted?
Weren't there some Confidential documents filed?
That could be the minimum bid info. Probably don't want that number out there prior to the auction process.
tryoty. I agree on all points.
I think that the judge will ask some pointed quuestions about the preferred bidder clause. I'll be interested in the answers that she gets. I also want to know why having such a clause benefits the unit holders.
It's there for a reason, I'd like to what it is.
LV
I think that you misconstrue the proceedure.
There is a chance that some bidders will see the situation just as you describe it and not enter a bid. I think those would be companies that are interested in trying to get a low ball price in the first place.
The companies that are serious about winning will look at this and see that the situation is not really much changed by the presence of the preferred bidder.
Here is my thinking. The serious companies realize that they will have to bid more than the other serious companies are willing to pay to win, period. That includes the preferred bidder.
Here is where I think you misconstrue the preferred bidder process. After the bids are opened, the preferred bidder has the option of meeting the highest bid and thus winning the auction. However, if the highest bid is more than the the prefered bidder is willing to pay, then the preferred bidder walks away and the highest bidder wins.
Overall the dynamics of the bid process haven't changed that much. You can make the argument the the company that wants the property will know that they have to bid high enough to discourage the preferred bidder and will bid higher as a result.
The only way to know for sure is to talk to the folks who prepared the bids and ask them how the preferred bidder affected their bid choices. I doubt that anyone will take the time to contact people to see if they are willing to discuss it.
Bottom line is.... I don't see this as unmittigated evil like you see to.
I hope there is room for more than one point of view on this board.
As proposed, the price will be set atauction time.....the preferred bidder will have the option of matching the best bid price.
I suppose there is nothing illegal or immoral about the preferred bidder stating a minimum price that he will bid in advance of the proposed settlement.
Vader As I understand this court date is a status conference.
The court is not going to review the proposed settlement for court approval at this time.
There is still that nasty issue of getting the intervenors to accept the proposed settlement or having the court dismiss their claims.
I am guessing tht we might see a court date set out of this hearing that will consider the settlement.
Man, what a ride.
That has always been true.
If they get this to trial, they will have done so against a determined opponent that very much did not want to get into a court room.
If you think this settlement demonstrates that the MOSH LP legal team is not competent, then there is nothing that I can say that will change your mind.
We don't have sufficent information to make a reasoned judgement about the proposed settlement. I am not going to make a judgement about this situation when I know that I don't have enough information to arrive at a meaningful conclusion.
Let me take part of that back.....I bought additional shares yesterday, so in fact I have made some judgements.
Please remember that the legal team had to have the approval of the MOSH LP and Dagger Spine to go forward with the proposed settlement. I don't know who was the driving force behind the proposal. It could have been the legal team telling Mosh LP et. al. that they were not likely to win much in court. It could be that the legal team said go to court and we will win, but appeals will tie it up for an additional 4 years. It could be that the MOSH LP et. al. told the legal team to figure out how to get as much cash as they can in the shortest period of time, and this is the result.
We just don't know.
How about the fact that they got to trial.
I'm not so sure that there will be a settlement...
There is the sticky issue of getting the interveners to agree to the settlement and if I read this correctly there seems to be a need for buy in from the unit holders.
That says two things to me....
There will have to be a sales job by the plaintiffs to sell the settlement, or the attorneys are establishing some precedents before going to trial.
Remember that if this is not agreed upon by all parties and all claims withdrawn or dismissed with prejudice then the agreement is voided.
I'm not a lawyer. As I understand it the judge would have to find a strong reason to dismiss the claims of the interveners with prejudice without their agreement. So, it seems to me that there must be some good reasons for the plaintiffs to believe that folks will willingly sign on to this agreement. We don't know what they are yet, but I think that more information will be forth coming before this gets to the judge.
If this agreement is not accepted and approved by the judge, we go to trial.
Ronpopeil ... I'm not able to bid on the properties.....sigh...
but I did pick up a large chunk of shares at today's fire sale.
I just might have to fly to Houston to see the hearing when the judge gets to review the settlement.
The response to this proposed settlement is truly amazing.
No one has in idea of why this was accepted by the plaintifs or what they expect the trust properties to auction for.
Yet people are calling for the disbarrment of the attorneys, describing people in the most harsh judgemental terms.
For all we know Gibbs did pull a last minute rabbit out of a hat that would have made the trial much less attractive. I'm not saying that he did, but we don't know.
The plantifs are the ones that have ALL of the information available to them, not us.
I expect that the plantifs will explain at some point why this makes sense to them, and it probably will make sense to us.
Did anyone ever consider that maybe the plaintiffs ran out of money to support the suit?
Relax and wait for more information to come out. It will.
Perhaps the plaintiffs already have a buyer lined up at a price that makes this an attractive deal, as another poster suggested.
We will find out in a bit more time.
Steady_T
The delay in the trial date is due to the various lawyers having previously scheduled vacations throughout the summer. September is the first time that they are all going to be available at the same time.
Not what we wanted at all.
The good news is... there is now a lot more time available to buy units.
Steady_T
Ican70
Kim had a motion to delay the trial becuase he is in court in another case. The judge denied the motion as I recall.
Kim's other case will progress during this delay. That means that once the trial begins he will be available for more time in this case than he would have been had the case started on time.
No one seems to notice that this delay will mean that Kim will be able to spend more time in OUR court room.
Thanks for the link.
Please understand that those buy & sell vols are guesses made by the software and are not reliable.
I have bought several times lately at the bid. That software would call that a sell not a buy. I have also sold at the ask on occasion which the software would classify as a buy.
As far as I know there is no way to know for sure wether a transaction is a buy or a sell unless you have a LVL III screen and I am not positive that a LVL III screen will correctly identify all transaction between MM's.
Steady_T
where do those numbers come from?
My Ameritrade LVL II is lying to me today.
After I close it and reopen it I see .32 x .33.
Second time today it's done that.
Thanks for pointing that out.
I see the bid has already dropped back to .295.
Ya'll may thank me for the run up to .33.
I dropped a large order on the ask to see what the market depth really is and I got a partial fill of 15,000 and all the MM's stepped away from the ask at .30.
I just cancled the rest of the order, so now we will see what kind of games (if any) the MM's are playing.