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I came over here to post the same article.
While there are some similarities the case referenced in the article there are also some glaring differences. There are a whole bunch of Winstar type cases that came about from the acounting policy changes and seizure. I believe it affected over 145 banks in total (I don't believe all of them were seized) vs what this could be perceived as a simple bad failure during a wave. This makes it much more speculative in my mind.
Note: I am not saying there is no court case but its going to be harder to prove imo.
Last, this article shows that its take 20 years. Another bank, Meritor is probably getting paid soon and Ben Franklin bank over in Oregon won $55M 8 years ago to lose it on appeal from the Gov in 2007-08 under the same if not stronger case than Meritor and others.
If you wish to sell on the release on Oct 5th great but this just kicks off discovery which could take years. For holders trying to buy a lotto ticket you should expect to wait years to find out if you have a winner or loser.
FD: No position here.
Thanks!
There is a few in there that I need/want to look at. Of most immediate importance was 491.
Thanks. I was trying to save a few bucks but guess not.
very interesting find. Nice work. God, I hope they could settle.
Any thoughts on the release in docket #1703 that reduces the sale of the company from $30M to $20M and downward revisions of Working capital, breakup fees etc. This revised amount was the amount estimated originally of the company in Chapter 7.
Guess that the buyer was discouraged by some of the assets on the books.
Frustrating, I hope someone else shows up and bids something higher but I doubt it.
Guess we'll have to wait until Oct 5th to find out when any other bids are due/any auction date.
Question for anybody else watching this.
Is anyone else having trouble accessing any recent documents on this case. When I go to the website the last docket that I can see is docket #459 from 9/16/2011. However it states there are 492 docket items.
I can understand a few days wait but not several weeks.
The reason I ask is that on 9/26/2011 the website changed stating that an equity holder did not have to file proof of ownership and similar to the repsonse that I heard from someone else on this board as This was docket #491.
http://www.trusteeservices.biz/HearUSA/Documents/DE%20491%20-%20Order%20Granting%20Motion%20to%20Dispense%20with%20Requirement%20to%20File%20Proofs%20of%20Interest.pdf
Thanks everyone.
I had assumed that we would not have representation at the table as we haven't this whole time. That said I can't imagine any meaningful negotiation with the parties at the table with us still being in play. I doubt the mediation will occur with this still being an open issue. If it is its going to take 4x as long.
Here is how the mediation will go in my mind:
I would assume so. Maybe a few days late.
Anybody have any thoughts on when this judgement will be made. To me this is the #1 sticking point with regards to the POR. I cannot see any value in mediation without this decided and I would expect the judge to feel the same.
Does this move the timeline up on this ruling? Or does it delay as THJMW try to led mediation work it out first?
(I get a bonus check mid October and the prudent thing would be to pay down my mortgage but I think I want to buy more DIMEQ).
Slightly OT but related...
So I was searching the web to see if there were other cases similar to our original litigation which caused the creation of DIMEZ back in 2002.
I have been unable to find a list of similar banks seizures, review of what I assume would be many similar cases. Does anybody have a list of what happened to the other S&Ls? Are any still pending?
I was able to find a comment that 140 instituations were affected by this change in legislation but I was unable to find if that was the number that were ultimately seized or if that was the number who had to take a hit based on the goodwill. And frankly I was too young to care about it back them as I was collecting baseball cards.
The only other bank I found any detail was Ben Franklin S&L in Oregon who ultimately won a claim based on their shareprice the day of before the law changed which they ultimately lost on appeal. Here is a comment I found.
Fantastic comments, sir.
The timeline and analysis are both wonderful.
It makes me want to go 100% in on this. Hell, I'd consider leveraging up via my HomeEquityLoan. Risk controls and my dear wife will not allow that to happen but I want to. You never know how it will turn out especially in a courtroom.
A follow up question for the board:
I am going to assume that our side wins and we become class 12. I also will assume that mediation will be successful and we have an approved agreement and payout in say April 2012 (ha-Rosen will still be billing in 2032).
Would it make sense for further litigation against the WMI Board beyond that for additional damages? If so what would the range be? I know that there is probably insurance that protects the board but I doubt if Insurance would cover this and if so would it be worth it. Boards are generally too much of a rubber stamp of management and a court case like this would maybe make boards much more proactive.
New Topic Please!
Ok, hopefully we can let the thread of the past few days die. We all agree 23M shares just like the courts. Whew.
Ok, here is my question. The recent selling of several million shares was attributable to the POR being denied and we discussed the plusses and potential minuses for the stock.
However, there is one thing that sticks with me. If the IT discussion has merit and we know they are going to mediation would it make sense for one of the 4 HFs to sell their shares of WAHUQ so they can make the claim that they did not materially gain from their knowledge atleast with the Hs.
Mimimonk has a sentence in post 1745 that stuck with me.
I don't think todays agenda is that important so I doubt many would be making the trek. Oct 12 is the next meeting I believe.
Based on how the mediation went for DIMEQ this summer I will be surprised by anything positive coming out of this.
Somebody has got to give and I don't see it happening. Mediation will probably be late Nov or December based on early Oct meeting and then 30-45 days to get shit ready. That puts a status meeting in Jan with no outcome.
New POR filed in Feb and away we go again. 2M shares traded in 10% class. Who would own that much? Probably a fund who sees this as dead money. That said I bought more today.
In theory yes. WAHUQ as a trust preferred is behind creditors but ahead of preferreds. As a waterfall in a normal BK the senior would have to get paid in full before the next class.
I believe that there is atleast one other class between WAHUQ and the P&K class which is REIT holders but I am not sure of the size of that group as as a retail holder I have no way to play that class.
However, a fun way to look at today is that the prior POR stated that the payout would be expected to be around 57% IIRC.
Yesterday:
57% x $34 = $19.38/share (which ties to the value range from $14-$17) since the last POR was issued less a discount for TVM and illiquidity.
57% x 23,000,000 shares x $34 = $445M value of the class.
After Today
$4.08 x 23,000,000 shares = $93.8M or a loss of $350M. Based on a no other changes and using a burn rate of $30M/month that would be 10 months before resolution from the date of the last POR that had the date of June 30 or July 31st IIRC.
The market is effectively saying this will continue to run until April 2012 and that means no returns for Preferred and commons as they are junior to WAHUQ outside of mediation where they could be thrown a bone to close the estate. All of this is my opinion.
Others could confirm.
I think she knows she has a losing position so is struggling to try and sound intelegent in defending her position. She is probably not dumb just a paid shill trying not to slip up which would affect her bonus.
Not dumb, but crazy like a fox.
When I signed on late morning and heard her voice I cringed. She sounded exactly like one of my former bosses.
voice, pauses, etc.
After 10 minutes I was convinced it was my old boss. Unfortunately, if it was my old boss I would be 100% in this stock.
Anybody notice the action in WAHUQ? I don't see the point of the drop. Skimming through the document nothing has changed. Seniors still get paid at the contractual rate which is what was used in the POR.
frustrated sure. but not pissed.
No idea. I bought a ton more at 6.00.
My favorite example of correlation without causation is. I keep this on the computer to send to friends who send me political messages (on both sides) with some story of woe.
http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/jcisd8/2008/jcisd8.2008.48.issue-1/ci700332k/production/images/medium/ci700332kn00001.gif
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci700332k
The graph of fresh lemons imported from Mexico to the US as compared to Total US Highway Fatality Risk.
This is not quite free money.
As of the last POR filed this spring these were expected to be paid out at 50-some% (can't remmeber exact wording -think 57%) based on a confirmation date of June 30.
The $34 is what the full value of these were worth as of the bankruptcy filing date plus Federal interest of 1.5% since the filing date.
Based on the recently killed POR these were expected to be paid at 57% of the $34 = $19.38/share. They settled at a discount to that amount due to variability, illiquidity, etc. As these being the fulcrum security (currently in the money- above preferreds) their value decreases from 57% to something less as legal fees of $30-40M/month eat into the value that is left.
You can see this logic as the prior POR had a value in the uppers 70s IIRC. Time and the increased legal fees in theory eats into every recovery.
I have owned these securities as I beleieve that holders of these will be able to own equity in the new WAMU equal to the difference between the full value ($34) and the settled value which I see as a valuable entity.
However, I am not the expert here and Enterprising Investor is much more knowledgable on this than me. I am also overtired with a newborn and a 2 year old who refuses to sleep.
Anybody have any thoughts that with the sale of the 80% of their JV for $31M which was basically for 2 current ships and 2 under construction. While these we smaller boats (37,000) as compared to 6 of the 8 that are twice their size. The valuation of $31M for 80% of 2 ships gives a value of $19.4M/vehicle. Since I know crap about shipping but assume that a ship 2x their size (71k-74,999) are worth 2x as much means that the value of the assets are:
6 @ $40M + 2 @ $20M = $280M.
I believe the only debts are the $241M by the HSA Nordbank. That means if they can sell the ships for that in a chapter 7 they should be some return.
Does anyone know what ships are currently under contract/terms?
Hey Uzual-
Did I miss these two?
12:00pm-12:30pm TPS;
12:30pm-1:00pm Dime LTW
I was trying to find a schedule earlier but didn't find anything. Now your schedule had the 4 insiders toward the end of day but I missed these two above which is who I was looking for.
I like listening to Steinberg re Dime
For them to vote for BK at this time is extremely stupid. They are squabling over $160M out of several billion with rate caps below 7% instead of 8% that they were talking about.
What, they got religion now?
Its truly a black box. Late in 2010 I spoke with one the guys liquidating LaSalle Re but have no idea on what anything is. He told me similar to the announcement that the only asset is the $5M in bonds due to TALLC of which 2.5M is senior and 2.5M is junior. I assume the juniors are worth $0. Then you try to figure out what a % recovery is for the senior bond and the time to final distribution for a potential return %.
There are only 3M shares so right now and the ask is sitting at $.15. That means you need to break in you need the bonds to be worth $450k. Now further assume that since this is risky you demand a return of 30% and you expect this to complete by Dec 31, 2012 which means the bonds need a return of $667k and it ends by 2012. Assuming the junior bonds are worth $0 the senior bonds needs to be worth $667/$2,500 = 26%. So if they can get a 25% recovery its worth my while, that said I only own 11k shares at $.08 on average.
Agreed. I left a lot of things out of my calculation.
I forgot about the preferred shares and I didn't even check to see if there were any options that could be excercised.
I would say my amount is the high amount.
Looks good. Congratulations. Best article I think I have found.
http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/08/01/siemens-wins-bidding-for-hearusa.html?page=all
Total Value of $129.3
Cash in the amount of $66.8 million, including the repayment of a $10 million loan from William Demant Holdings that HearUSA used to fund its operations during the bankruptcy.
A credit bid of $30.7 million based on Siemens’ secured claim against the debtor.
Assumption of liabilities and court costs of about $11.7 million.
Waiving the distribution of its ownership of HearUSA stock, which is worth $6 million to $7 million.
Adding this up gets me to $116.2 short of the $129.3. But lets use that. Using only the cash less the $10M DIP gets you to $56.8M. Subtracting out the value of Siemens 6.4M shares from the 45M outstanding shares gets me to about $1.47/share.
$56.8M/38.6 = $1.47
Any thoughts on how my math looks?
Fantastic update. I am not sure how you do it but I am continually amazed at your information gathering abilities and then your ability to analyze, understand and make decisions from it.
Does anyone know the process of the bids tomorrow?
If this a competing bids sort of thing (Nortel most recently) or is it a 1-time closed bid (think gov't contract).
Thanks for the note. I was expecting something to heat up before July 29th but I wasn't look at PACER. The last file out for free was on July 20th.
Just glanced at PACER, seems like a little summary of Siemens is out there under docket #335. $97.574M but there are two caveats; $37.4M for Siemens for supply agreement and $30.7M for the secured claim. The $30.7M is simiar to the $31.4M for Demant (I think).
I think this is a lesser bid:
Demant ($80 - $10 DIP - $31.4 Siemens Supply) = $38.6 - amounts to other creditors etc.
Siemens ($97.5 - $31.4 Siemens Supply - $37.4) = $28.7 left for everything else.
I'm not good at this stuff as its greek to me and my eyes are killing me. Thoughts?
Unfortunately keep waiting is all I can say. I've never been frustrated by any company as this one.
I feel confident that this is a real company but its behavior over the past 9 months is nothing short of bizarre. I'm usually a very patient man with regards to my investments and use quiet periods as buying opportunities if I can. This one has me stumped. I should be out buying more shares but I cannot based on their behavior as mgmt has no credibility.
Basically those dollar amounts tell you all you need to know of what the fulcrum security is.
I believe that the stalking horse bid is about $1.375B. Total Debts are $1.535B. So its still short. In addition shares of Terrestar are only 88% of the value.
The current bid is similar to DBSB recently although Telestar has a similar spectrum and some other goodies that as of now the market is valuing as $0. Exchangable notes are only at 66% in this amount as well. You would have to add $51M more before commons got paid.
http://terrestarinfo.com/pdflib/636_15446.pdf
Note, I spent 10 minutes looking this up and I have no idea of a second bidder will/has come forward. Purely as a lotto play imo.
(That said, I don't understand the Sprint announcement with Lightspeed that puts them on the hook with Immosat for 20 years and Lightspeed can only use half their spectrum with the issues with 911calls/GPS.
Friday Silly Time-
Since its a beautiful Friday afternoon and I am unfortunately stuck in side waiting for a meeting to start in 7 minutes.
Informal poll-
When do you think this case will be settled with regard to DIMEQ and why?
a) By July 31st
b) By Year-end
c) in 2012
d) beyond 2012
Agreed on all counts.
Facts that we know.
1. Company does exist. It does real revenues and has been in existence for a while.
2. Hospitals who have used the service, like it and appreciate the value.
3. There are lots of smaller players in this market that would be ripe for a larger player in the market. This business is highly scalable and leverage is great.
Things we assume:
1. The financials are still unknown.
2. Management cannot be trusted. Individual phone calls have been made with guidance not met.
Pinkyring's post on the reasons are exactly correct. I have no idea in what they are doing but I know its not in my best interest. I usually have more patience than most with regards to a company going silent/dark before a major reporting but this is bizarre. I am not a pump and dump but more of a LTBH sort of guy.
It pains me to say this but I may need to go back and call the hospitals that I spoke with and see if they have noticed anything (less service contacts lately).
Thanks!
Thanks for the quick reply. I wish I had your average share price.
My broker (Fidelity) stops at when Dimez became Dimeq and I'm having trouble with my TOS account.
Historical price of Dimeq?
Does anyone have the historical price/chart of Dimeq when it was trading under Dimez. I don't think it ever traded under any other symbol. Had a conversation about the history of the stock and while not important to the case at present its become somewhat or a chase for me.
TIA.
Just started looking into this space after the payment to AGO.
Hopefully, I can ask a few questions here and make myself more comfortable.
I done investments in other insurnance companies and I wonder why you are using ABV instead of traditional book value?
Using ABV it means the stock is trading today at $.42/7.65 or 5.5% of its ABV. Does anyone have any idea of what % of ABV Syncora traded at prior to say 2008? (I can look it up, I just haven't at this point).
A normal book value, such is what is used for P&C and Life insurance companies would be negative and therefore zero value for an entity such as Syncora. Is this something unique to monoline insurers?
Second and final question for now. SYCRF is the stock at the Syncora Holdings LTD level, and we have the financials for Syncora Capital Assurance (26-4761276) which appears to be a subsidiary of Syncora Guarantee Inc (13-3635895) which we also have financials for. However if you look at the org structure on page 39 of Syncora Capital Assurance q1 filing there are two other companies; Syncora Guarantee Services and Syncora Administrative Holdings US which both have subs and even Syncora Guarantee has Syncora Guarantee (UK) as a sub. Do these have anything in them? Does anyone know? The one that scares me is the Syncora CDS LLC (13-4195920).
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NDI4NTg4fENoaWxkSUQ9NDQ1NTkzfFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1
Thanks and I hope to contribute to the board in the future.
The frustrating part of this is why not advertise you are a public company. There is a value from a sales standpoint from being a full SEC reporting company.
When they go in and bid most if not all of their competition is small, private companies. A statement of "A full SEC reporting publicly traded company in the brochure lends automatic credibiliity. However, to the majority of the public a pink sheet stock trading under a $1.00 is viewed as a scam. File the financials, get current, then do a 1:5 or 1:10 reverse split to make the stock be above $5.00 or whatever. The owner is not diluted and we are all the same just a different ratio of the float.
I understand that with the rash of Chinese reverse mergers that have turned to be fraudulent that the SEC would want to sniff around a newly reporting one. Here is the problem that I have with the supposed concerns regarding the SEC signing off on the financials. I have never seen the SEC sign-off on financials proactively. Generally, the SEC would review the financials and then file and send a response letter with any informationt that they disagree or want clarified.
Get the filings done and use it to push sales. Our interests are aligned until your lockup period ends. I will sell and take my loss on the shares if I don't see anything by mid-September.
Thanks for the review on this lawyer. Amazingly while an undergraduate I attended a lecture one evening where he was the guest. He presented himself and lawyers like him as ones that kept the greedy corporations and their boards somewhat honest.
Reading your note, his wikipedia bio, and a quick google image search brought it all back. At the time I was an undergrad majoring in Finance and looking at law as a field to go into. He spoke about how much time was spent going through the numbers to find where the bodies were buried.
While he set up a horrible deal for shareholders he atleast got them something. It can be hard to prove fraud/backdealing without a whistleblower quite often. I am not saying this case is like that as we had a whistleblower (Mr. Cohen) and mountains of proof back then. Usually, its hidden better and harder to uncover. Seems like he just wanted his fee.
I am happy I didn't go into law.