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Jax - Do you have any color into the courts in Florida regarding BK?
In 4 weeks I will be driving past one of their plants in Abbottsford, WI. Maybe I'll try to stop in and say hello.
Last night I was going through my work on this and had actually done some work on it back in November. At that time it had traded at $.20/share and in my notes I had believe that equity would have recovery but it was not worth the risk/reward.
Outside of the last few weeks it had hovered in the .15 range until someone wanted to sell 30k shares @ .12. It reached a new range of $.05 for a while until someone unloaded 235k shares at $.02 on March 15th and then 50k shares the following monday @.016.
Looks like its runaway from me.
There actually appears to be 6 items.
I read one on Pacer. Seems one of the RV guys is looking for $66k. Didn't look at any of the others.
Thanks. Your packet is one of the affiliates. I was looking at the parent (Dri Corp).
Completely different assets listed which I was looking for in my filing as I didn't see anything on AR, or inventory.
Your secured is the same as mine but you have a larger unsecured balance than mine. Guess I am going to have to pull all of them and look again.
Good to see you here. I was looking at this last night.
$Where are you seeing the $11M in debt and $6M in assets?
Per their filing on Pacer they have $11M in assets and $9M in secured and $1.5M in usecured debt. Granted that all of the $11M except for $70k ($$0k in cash and $30k in security deposits is what they value their foreign ops which are outside of the Bk.
Two other strange parts about the filing, so far are:
They estimate a value of their foreign assets in their personal property yet their $9.5m in debt is their US debt and does not include approximately the $5.1M of debt that was due to Handelsbanken for their Swedish and German subsidiaries. Granted the $11M is what they value the shareholder equity (which should be assets less liabilities) of the foreign subsidiaries I'd prefer to see the actual lines of assets and debts.
Other surprising items of note to me: Per their Sep 30 filing hey only had $2.8M due ot PNC Bank (BHC Interim funding) of their LOC - its now $3.1M and their long term debt with BHC was $4,750 and per the filing is $6,450. That is an increase of $1.7M. If I was to attribute all of the $1.1M of loan termination fee accrual to it we are still increasing that amount by $571k. Curiously their Term Loan with Roberto Demore of $975k which is unsecured does not show up in their filing. They may have paid that off by borrowing more against their LT and LOC lines with PNC.
The LT portion of both their Handelsbanken and more importantly with BHC (PNC Bank) were due at the end of April.
What are your thoughts?
Seems the preferreds are privately held and add a hurdle of $6.5M for common.
BTW, I have no position in this company but I came over here after the blog post by the Diligent Investor.
http://thediligentinvestor.blogspot.com/2012/03/case-update-03222012-trident.html
I have a man-crush on his abilities to keep upwith and both eloquenty state the real issue while also reading his ability to understand and speak in legal jargon.
I would assume the the patents yes. Its interesting how this was worded as there was a question of would they sell these two and liquidate or reorganize around their IP and become a pure licensing company.
Others thoughts on the hire:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2012/03/21/meru-networks-names-bami-bastani-as-ceo.html
Sunnyvale-based Meru went public in 2010, but posted the second biggest stock drop in Silicon Valley last year, losing 73.22 percent of its value and closing at $4.22 at the end of December. It closed Wednesday at $4.62, up 1 cent from Tuesday's close.
Trident was the biggest Silicon Valley loser of 2011, dropping nearly 90 percent over the course of the year.
If I was a Meru shareholder I don't think I would be excited over the hire.
If they are anybit successful with this you you basically have a 30 year investment horizon.
Back in the 1970s American Airlines created SABRE in which it sold tickets to customers (travel agents at the time), it managed a part swapping inventory for airlines and it reconciled the intra-airline tickets. Airlines saw the problem with every travel agent using Sabre as the sorting function put American Airlines on top and most purchases were made on the first screen they all quickly came out with their own competition which they gave to travel agents (Galileo was Delta's). Eventually the gov't placed restrictions on how the systems could rank flights by time or price taking away an advantage to Delta, United and American (the owners of the three systems). While the internet took away the front-end the back-office items that Sabre provides are so integrated at every airline around the world it basically hard for any airline to pull out. Its a great profitbale product that once its fixed costs have been paid for its hard for airlines to justify moving away from it even for newer, better tech.
I've seen analysts question this business line of IBM but once you get past the upfront costs you have a 30 year license stream if they integrate it successfully.
I think both answers can be correct. On a country level I think China is like Japan in the 1910-1920s and somwhat like the US in the 1920s as people left the agricultural field and rural life to move to the city where better jobs/quality of life were. At the same time with that shift restaurants should be an early beneficiary of the move.
My only Chinese stock I own is Country Style Cooking (CSCC) which started as a McDonalds knock-off and switched to homestyle local, rural food in cities at a cheap price. Large runway for growth and 100% focused on China.
The winning bid was $65Mish plus $15M of assumed liabilities. The news release didn't include that nugget but the actual order did.
My personal belief is China is Japan in the 1920s or maybe 1950s. Just coming out of decades on insulation and growing their economy by being the cheapest producer of commodity goods. Individual factory owners are trying to get volume and market share in the short term with the plan that margins come later. However I expect that to fail as producers will simply move. The same thing happened in Japan in the 1920s, along with a property bubble that deflated. The 50s apply as Japan was originally known for cheap knock-offs which rapidly shifted due to their reverse engineering into consumer electronics (Sony, Sanyo, Panasonic) and then automotive.
I lean toward 1920s Japan but the 1950s Japan works. I don't think there is a good comparison with the US on a historical basis.
I added a little more color. My coworker owns a lot of DE stock, his brother is a very wealthy individual. His plan was to retire after the last plant expansion and the rollout of the new combines last summer, as they needed him.
He's still there and has promised his wife that he'll retire when this expansion is complete. My coworker, his brother doesn't believe him. He's supposedly wealthy enough that is working on the trust funds for his grandchildren. The entire family is a example of an American Success story. Three brothers who grew up on a dairy farm in the midwest with no indoor plumbing btw until the 60s, one brother stayed on the farm, one had his own dairy farm and quit due to health problems forced him out of the fields and he went to college in his 30s to become an accountant, and this guy who went to college, got a job as a engineer and through lots of hard work worked his way up the engineering side and now runs the plant.
My coworkers brother runs that plant for Deere. He is shocked by the demand in the US. In 2008 they were down to 1 shift/day, then 2 and now 3 shifts 4days/week with the others for cleanup etc that actually keep the plant more efficient.
What their engineering is working on now is hybrid/battery tech. Even though the release states it will not add new jobs that is based on the belief that the expansion will allow then to end the 3rd shift which is their least productive and rotate staff to two shifts. Based on their backlog he doubts that will happen.
Here is a press release.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/entropic-communications-selected-to-acquire-trident-set-top-box-system-on-a-chip-assets-and-intellectual-property-2012-02-27
It states here $65M vs the previous bid which is not 40% but I wouldn't doubt Mr. McFadden's blog. Unfortunately, I don't see any filings on Edgar from either company.
No idea.
Anybody you ever looked at Sucampo Pharma?
Came across them when I was looking at something else and got distracted. Stock up 50% in early Feb based on positive phase III results for Opiod Inducing Constipation (OIC).
http://investor.sucampo.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=201197&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1655607&highlight=
I was trying to figure out the size of the market. Per a competiting drug (NKTR-118) it gives me some idea of the size of the market. Supposedly 250M scripts annually for Opiod Treatment with 40-50% having OIC constipation. With 40-50 getting effective treatment. Using low ends you are talking about a target market of 250M x .4 (for OIC) x .4 that aren't getting recovery. That is a potential of 40M scripts. Even 50% of that would be 20M. The problem I am having is how long is the average person on Opiods (the only time I have known people to be on them is for a few days in a hospital so short treatment length. Yet the Market Value of the company is only $285M with oonsiderable amounts of cash.
What I don't know is and you may know is how long from now is are the results strong enough to get FDA approval and even then will this be a common script. Thoughts?
Will the final effective date be the end of February or whenever everything gets approved (looks like april)?
I would agree with about 90% of what you wrote. (where is the WSJ article you state?)
There is a glut of oil in the upper midwest trying to get free. I was simply trying to explain the difference between WTI and Brent and where its settled is important. I' don't know oil but I know ag contracts and I bet that the price that a refinery in Denver or Moorhead, MN is probably linked to WTI and not Brent.
I would expect that if they do reverse the pipeline from Cushing to points south we should expect WTI to trade more in line with Brent or atleast back closer to its $3/barrel difference vs the $30/barrel we've seen recently which is why your HF friend is able to still make money shipping via rail.
Again, I think we are on the same general belief.
Isn't the price difference between the prices due to the fact that cushing, ok is the spot of settlement for all that oil. My understanding is that as of this summer the pipelines that run from Cushing to the gulf coast will switch directions to allow the fuel from North Dakota to Cushing to the gulf coast. this should alleviate the price differential.
No idea on why Hess is getting a premium other than the fact that brokers would rather make 1 phone call vs 10. Up in ND they are now opening up new barge runs to rails to get the price out as the pipelines are full and even after the increased costs (barge + rail) to refineries on east and gulf coasts its worth the price difference.
Here's a decent article explaining the price differences.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/308575-play-the-brent-wti-spread-after-enbridge-actions
Thank you for the response.
(Sorry that it was delayed as I missed it earlier).
Mr. Bush owns 1.5M shares. According to this letter in December Mr. Cawood controls over 10% or 11M shares. I doubt he wants to go down swinging.
Here is the original link:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69693979
Here is his filing.
http://www.kccllc.net/documents/0812229/0812229111206000000000012.pdf
As posted on this board, I sold my shares on the initial news but I've considered buying back in before the idea that they would lock. I'm only good for 50k say.
Right now we are all questioning and wondering. My questions for those who understand the judicial system better than I is:
1. If we are focused on Judge Block - do we need to do anything? Can he simply rule that the BK court is overstepping their bounds or do we need to do something there.
2. Do we appeal Judge Mary's decision?
3. If one does nothing and does not grant a release is it fair to assume these stop trading at the end of Feb? or do we have until April 12?
Lastly, finding a lawyer to take a case is one thing. Knowing a lawyer who is good at this and knows what/who/why as time is of the essence seems more important.
delete. posted twice.
The Winstar cases are what I brought forward. The Anchor or DIME litigation is just one of hundreds that are commonly referred to. The DIME litigaton that is part of the WAMU case is completely irrelevant to the original Anchor Litigation in Judge Block's court.
If you don't think they have any relation to this case, then ignore my posts on the subject. I think they are similar with the Winstar plantiffs actually having a stronger case, imo. For others who may not be aware I wanted to bring this forward. Other recent cases where banks have sued for wrongful seizure have been heard, Corus Bank is one that is undergoing the process but I believe they have no case as their financials were crap.
The Judge should have lots of cases as history and most are not in our favor. Winstar are one of the few that have won and its taken a long, long time. That is all.
I was mistaken when I wrote this was being heard in Denver. If it is in DC then I was wrong, as I have not logged back in to PACER to confirm but I have no reason to doubt.
If you think I am looking for cheap shares you are mistaken. I have my lotto tickets already bought. I simply am trying to add levity to this pro-message board as many of the posts are about when to expect a settlement. I'm done beating this topic to death. Time to move on, I'll check back periodically to see how the case is progressing. Hope you'll still be here.
Based on the awards the commons will be cancelled.
In the Winstar cases in order to make investors whole the government payout has been generally ordered to be grossed up so that the payouts which should ultimately flow to shareholders would be a fair amount.
Example is the award is deemed to be $200M. The court determines the holding companies effective tax rate (in this case probably close to zero if there NOLs are still good). Lets say though that the tax rate for the corporation is 35%. That means that the ultimate payout is about $305M so that after taxes the holding company got their $200M.
Therefore the company will be made whole but any gain you would have on the stock is simply your short term or long-term capital gains.
I disagree. Winstar was much more than breach of contract. My personal opinion is that these banks had a stronger case as they had a contract to go back on against the gov. If you read the rights the FDIC has its sickening. There is no limit to their power.
a) The banks in the Winstar litigation were over 100 (140 I think). These were banks that bought up assets of failed banks and in order to take them over (from the FDIC's equal for Savings and Loans) they worked out a deal where they would take over 100% of the failed banks deposits and the failed banks loans. These banks failed because of loans being worth less than the deposits.
In the banking world to a bank their deposits by a customer are its liabilities and the loans are its assets. They would generally take 100% of the performing loans on their books with some sort of agreement on the failed loans which would be covered by the Feds. This would leave them with L>A that they took on so therefore to balanace their books the Feds allowed them to fill the gap with goodwill that would be depreciated over 25 years. A few years went by and the Feds cancelled that immediately putting these banks who had just helped the Feds buy absorbing poor banks in trouble themselves. The FDIC depending on their mood would allow some banks to work out the issues, some they immediately seized and some they gave some time to. Many of these banks ended up being seized by the Feds or they sold ahead of time to someone else.
These banks have generally filed individual claims against the Federal government for wrongful breach of contract. These cases have dragged on years with crazy tactics by the Feds. Even the main judges opinion on this has stated the Federal Government is acting irresponsible and immoral yet his hands are tied. The banks could not file a class action as one cannot class-action the gov, nor does the gov't have to pay penalties such as interest so there is no reason for them to settle like a normal defendant.
I'm not saying that there won't be a settlement announced soon but that we have history in how the government has acted in the past on similar cases and the timeline is very wrong. A good think in my opinion is that this case is being managed out of Denver and not out of the DC as the Winstar cases are.
Mesa is a great cheerleader and has done a great job of DD and compiling all the thoughts. However there is one thing in his DD that I disagree with. Yes, the documents show that they signed a deal two days before the acquiring bank before shutting them down even when they were aware of a financing transaction. I argue who cares. You don't think they magically shut down a bank on Friday afternoon and it reopens on Monday with a new bank. These things are all preworked out. Much of the other DD is fine but this one in particular bothers me.
Carry on with your cheerleading but don't be surprised if you are still here in two or three years.
I just don't want people to buy thinking a settlement is imminent. The wheels of justice move very slow and I expect based on the Feds actions in Winstar to do the same here. I could be very, very wrong but that was a much cleaner case and the Feds still suck.
I wish Odyssey luck but I doubt they prevail.
Per the article this brief has changed the goalposts that the ship was on a commercial mission and not soverign. Back them they were one and the same. The original argument which had more merit imo was that there were no reminants of the ship visible when the items were found. The problem with that argument is then how did you find the coins.
The whole thing sucks for Odyssey becuase the international rules never contemplated what they were doing. Tis a shame.
I wish you all luck. I bought a little bit to track with when it was in the $.03 range. Personally, I believe there is a good story here but I want to warn people that this case may take longer than you think.
If anyone is so inclined you can go look up the Winstar cases where banks (lots of them) had a contract with the Feds which the Feds breached. There are a few banks still out there that have had court payments awarded to them and are still on appeal. We are talking 15 years from the original injustice and 3-4 years since they won.
The Feds do not have to pay interest so they can stall all they want. It sucks but its the way it is. Just trying to temper the enthusiasm. A deal may happen but the way the DOJ has worked in the Winstar cases I doubt it.
Again, I have a few shares as a lotto ticket but I don't expect to get paid for a long time.
I've spent a lot of time researching the battery sector. I can guarantee with almost 100% certainty that equity will be cancelled but I can also see a run. Too many suppliers.
Sad fact is these guy had a good idea/battery. Senior mgmt investment in Th!nk not once but twice killed the company.
That is what the court case was about. They get none of it due to maritime law.
Spain is going to give some of it to Peru as Peru may have a valid claim that is was illegally stolen from them but that is between the two countries. Peru will get 10% or something from Spain so the Politicians can call it a win.
OMEX got their ass handed to them on this. This is why you see them announce deals with the countries first before they announce anything. Its not like they just found it a few days after signing the form. Good news is they have learned from this.
Yep, its the whole distinction between Washington Mutual Bank and WMI, the parent company. You can go read the filing on Pacer which summarize the claim in Judge Block's case and there JPM argues against the DOJ that the as part of the sale by FDIC that they the Anchor Litigation was part of it. In fact reading the documents you see that the FDIC agrees with JPM that it was transferred as part of the entire deal. The DOJ is basically trying to state that the Anchor Litigation was not part of the initial transaction so that the FDIC still had the rights to the Anchor Litigation which would mean that the gov't still owns it so that it simply can pay itself from one hand to another.
Actually the accounting shennaigans did cause them to restate a couple years of earnings. If those were correct then you may not have seen the growth that they were showing back then. Without it they wouldn't have had such a high stock price which they used to buy up companies to vertically integrate. Without that higher stock price I don't think they get some of those deals done.
So the shorts may have been right but GMCR was able to delay it until it didn't matter. Semantics sure. I am more amazed/concerned that you remember this original conversation enough to bring it back up.
WS -
I had a longer reply typed out but something happended. I wondered if you had moved on (sounds likely) or what since you had stated this in message 6146.
Absolutely. I closed my short on them and am reconsidering my thesis on SodaStream. I've never liked the business model as they are selling to the middle-class suburban mom via Bed Bath, and Beyond when they should be selling to yuppies who don't want to carry soda home the corner bodega. Simple, light.
Back to GMCR they bought most of the manufacturers who made K-cups so there isn't a mfg. ready to go. Add in the fact that they signed deals with Dunkin and Starbucks and I don't see much of a real signal that people want to take them on. Starbucks and Dunkin just want a cut which is good for GMCR.
No position.
Saw it earlier. Some names are redacted but yeah I saw GE, Siemens, and a bunch of _ Capital guys.
Interesting to see A123 Battery company. they probably want to just use the feed and regualation with 20MW already hooked up to the grid. I doubt they have the money to make a big bid here. Although it would be an interesting market for them and they just brought on a large manufactruing facility that is woefully underutilized unless they have some large orders. This may be a market for them to show especially after they have announced two grid projects in Hawaii but for normal generation and not Frequency regulation market.
Interesting that some of the Capital guys ,based purely on some limited googling (having never heard of most of them) own Nat Gas assets. With Nat Gas being cheap these guys should be pretty profitable if the economy picks up. Right now the demand and pricing for these peaking plants should be pretty low as the reduced economy (which is why BCONQ is in Chapter 11) but with increased growth in alternative energy (wind, solar) there absolutely will be more demand for FR as these fuck with the frequency of the grid and Nat Gas is not fast enough to respond where these guys and batteries can.
The problem right from a bidding perspective now is the NY-ISO market is so much cheaper than other markets on Next day pricing and the the FERC ruling has been delayed a year for more input and no firm pricing has been announced for the fast response.
Key dates are this:
Final Bid - Feb 1 @ 4:00pm
Auction - Feb 3 @ 10am
Hearing to aprove sale on the 7th @ 3:30pm (Eastern).
I would not expect to hear anything until maybe after the 3rd. However we should hear on the evening of the 7th what the winning bid was and at what amount.
I think there will be atleast one bidder. I'd expect Siemens to be in there. They are working on what is supposedly a more efficeint flywheel design in a lab environment but there is considerable value to converting a lab design to a manufacturing facility. I've been invested in a battery tech company that in its move from lab to hand production to assembly line tech has taken over a decade. That knowhow is worth something.
Add in simply the inverter and costs to hook up 20MW to the grid. I've seen estimates for the cost of that to be worth $10-20M.
If there were no bidders, which I doubt, the Gov doesn't want another issue of a Solyndra where they extended financing in February 2011 (their second loan) and they still failed 6 months later. To many it was the second loan that was the crime, as the business model had shown by then it was flawed and had failed. In that case they will shut it down. This BK is an example of that thinking, if they really were concerned about getting their money back they could have worked with Beacon to 1) complete finishing the plant and 2)deferred repayment terms out a few years like many banks are doing with commercial loans. Their behavior is of not willing to compromise.
If one was to read the initial plans to sell this business and the fact that BCON initially put lots of provisions so that they could exclude anyone for any reason you should get nervous. The DOJ objected to this so that the highest bidder wins. This should make shareholders cautious as it may appear that Capp and mgmt of BCON want a certain group to win to potentially have them manage it long term (incentive for them) but not for shareholders wanting the largest return.
The fact that with the auction being scheduled tomorrow and we have not heard whispers of even a stalking horse bid should concern shareholders.
Lastly, CRG partners is the key to this case, imo. Back when they initially filed they were brought in to look at restructuring/sale options. They specialize in this and are very, very good. Without them I would have walked away and never looked further. Docket #164 tells the story of what and how they get paid.
They get 15% of the first $10M, 10% of the next $10M and 3% of anything beyond $20M for a risk premium. Those are huge levers. Sell for $10M - they get $1.5M, Sell for 20M they get $2.5M, sell for $30M they get $2.8M. You see they are incentivized to get to $20M and not more. We need them to get to $50M to pay back the STate of Mass and Fed Gov before we are considered.
The second part o
I'm pretty sure I know the name of WallStreet61, and the Grunge. Neither are Benjamin Bush and I believe MrchntofDeath stated he is from Texas.
I'm hoping my post, will cause him to come out either publicly or privately. I still hold out hope that Mr. Bush could somehow work together with Rodney McFadden and WallStreet. Those two are some of the brightest posters around.