First time poster!
I'm beginning to sour on Middlebrook's prospects for returning cash to equity investors as recent developments continue to disappoint. While Friday's deal capped Par's claim at $3.5 mm, an arbitration decision on the final claims resolution won't come until after February 2011, causing the estate to burn through a lot more cash than I originally anticipated. Also, I had hoped the judge would have disallow the Par claim entirely on Friday, another negative for this case.
For the past three months, payroll totalled $215k, $174k, and $388k. I'm shocked that payroll expense more than doubled from July to August. The direction of these expenses makes me wonder what's going on. The last time I checked, I thought this was a liquidation, not a company preparing for a new product launch.
The final development that's spooking me relates to trading volume. Volume on Friday exceeded 600,000 share versus average daily volume in the 20k to 30k range. These volume numbers concern me that "smart money" is bailing out of Middlebrook.
If anyone knows of something positive going on, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm tempted to bail on this company as well.
