re: "...can we still participate in the gains from this lawsuit. "
The main guys here seem to think so. Seems like I was convinced when i asked a similar question a while ago.
Obviously a sale would seem to complicate things a bit. Right now we have units that have a market value composed of NAV plus "goodwill" factor (expectation of future money). If the hard assets go away we would be left with future expectations, which, probably will continue to fluctuate widely depending on how the case is perceived as going. I don't know if there is a "par" value assigned to units but, like pretty much all modern day stocks, it is likely very low. Presumably money netted from sale would be divied up as some sort of cash distribution to unitholders.
How could that go?
1. Best case, they get $1 billion for properties, we get $10 per unit or so and we all go away happy.
2. Middling case, properties go for $30 million to $150 million, we get somehwhere between .50 to 2.00 per unit. Personally I'd be pretty happy with $2 per unit at this point. But maybe that's just me...
3. Worst case, properties go essentially no bid and some defendant's brother-in-law picks them up for $20 plus a pack of cigarettes with one missing... (I bought a car like that once - the cigarettes clinched the deal. <g>)
I don't know why they couldn't at least put them up for regular sale instead of auction. i.e. Energy prices will likely double over the next year or so.
The units will still presumably be there. If they have a book value of zero after the sale, theoretically someone could buy an infinite number (well, the entire float anyway) and then realize an infinite or tremendous profit on the goodwill portion. Presumably the defs still need to "get their hands slapped", so I would expect unitholders to get _something_, here again maybe a billion or maybe just $50 million or so like pxd shelled out on, i believe the kansas case on some technical accounting "error" which it seemed like they did without too much flinching...
after this is all over one way or the other i think i am swearing off "buy and hold" "investing"...
