Your assumptions are correct. Judge Jones is a creditor/debtor/ big lawyer ABA establishment guy. He is not shareholder friendly and everyone here reading this knows it. AD HOC EC with no teeth is all you get from him.
He threw you that bone because he felt he had to at the time. Notice how its NOT an 'official' equity committee with real teeth.
He will take the first easiest solution to end this and get JCP 'back to business' as usual (if thats even possible). His BS about 'caring for the employees' is exactly that. Pure BS and rank demagoguery. He doesnt give a fatratsA$$ about the employees. Political populism from the bench, period. All in my opinion of course.
That is where UPTICK and the bash crew are right, in that chances of a fair value buyout are very thin at best.
Your best chances, Walmart and Amazon getting in a pssing contest over it. Those chances are still good, maybe 50/50 (thats pretty good in this environment). I think even the shorts would acknowledge that Amazon and Walmart both need the foot print, badly.
My guess, both will offer the debt of $4.8 billion plus a few shekels for shareholders, just for appearances and to squelch any long term litigation. If creditors are paid at par, what can they say to Jones? Nothing. If shareholders are offered 40 to 50 cents a share (whatever it is must be a small premium to current PPS IMO), what can they say to Jones? Nothing. He will tell them something is better than nothing, and the debtor plan had called for nothing.
OpCo PropCo scam will likely be the end if there is NO eventual buyout. Creditors will scam you for the new REIT company (the real value) and at best unsecureds/shareholders get a piece of the failed retail dinosaur.
We'll see. Thats my 1 JCP post allowed for today.
