as discussed in post 4998, the 28th is the deadline for submitting bids. for any bids submitted on the 28th by 4p.m., sears has until january 4th by 4 p.m. to notify any such bidders if their bid is qualified.
if there is more than 1 qualified bidder, then an auction will be held on january 10 at 10 a.m.
if lampert does not upgrade the financial portion of his prior offer with some type of cash backstop, he will be out of the picture. if anyone other than lampert submits a bid for sears as a going concern and that bid becomes qualified, then the stock could still survive through that bidder. however, the best bet for sears stock to survive would be for lampert to be the winning bidder. he would do whatever he could to make sure the shares survive.
if no one places a bid by the 28th for the 500+/- stores as a going concern, then the company will be liquidated and the stock will be worthless.
however, lampert is in a "protected" position. even if his shares are wiped out, the loans he made to sears (through esl) were secured by various of the sears owned properties and real estate. if sears defaults on those loans, which it surely will if there is no viable "going concern" bid, then lampert will take the properties which secured the loans, close the sears stores and commence to repurpose those properties.
don't know how much of lampert's loans are secured but i believe it is a good portion of the $1.8 billion in loans he has extended to sears.
if lampert does not secure his bid position and does not get some type of indemnification from sears regarding the issues surrounding seritage and the secured loans he could still face litigation anyway.
since lampert was an officer of the company up until the time it filed for bankruptcy, it would seem that sears directors/officers liability insurance would cover him against any liability. in the alternative, if lampert was not covered by the d&o insurance, it would seem other sears' officer and directors who approved the seritage and secured loan deals would also be liable.
in a prior post, bar mentioned some money possibly coming back in referencing judge drain. that would probably be the financial instruments sears sold to cyrus (i believe around the bk filing) which drain would seek to unwind. just read an article which got into some detail around that matter.
it seems there is more than one bag of worms with which drain will be dealing.
since the bid deadline is 4p.m. on friday, that will mark the time the market closes. again, if lampert and/or anyone else submits a bid monday's opening should be tame. if no bids are submitted i would think monday will be a rush for the exits.
AI
