Friday, May 20, 2011 3:47:19 PM
Wamuq going to explode Monday morning!!!!
WaMu, Creditors, Shareholders Said to End Bankruptcy Fight
May 20, 2011, 2:45 PM EDT
More From Businessweek
By Steven Church and Linda Sandler
(Updates with names of accused hedge funds in fifth paragraph.)
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc. and its biggest creditors agreed to settle a fight with shareholders by giving them control of the company that will emerge from bankruptcy, two people familiar with the proposal said.
The outline of the deal includes $25 million for a litigation trust that would bring lawsuits to collect more money for shareholders. In return, shareholders would drop allegations that hedge funds who own $2.54 billion of WaMu’s debt used confidential information to guide their investments.
How much the deal is worth to shareholders can’t be easily calculated because the value of the reinsurance company they will get relies in part on future tax breaks, one of the people said.
“That is impossible to assess,” one of the people said.
Shareholders are among the last opponents to WaMu’s reorganization plan, which would pay more than $7 billion to creditors, who are mostly unsecured note holders.
The deal would include the court-appointed committee of WaMu’s equity holders, WaMu, and four hedge funds who helped negotiate the current reorganization plan: Appaloosa Management LP, Centerbridge Partners LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP and Aurelius Capital Management LP.
Proposed Settlement
Details of the proposed settlement have not yet been decided and the deal could still fall through, one of the people said.
WaMu, based in Seattle, filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 26, 2008, the day after its banking unit was taken over by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. Washington Mutual Bank was the biggest bank to fail in U.S. history, with more than 2,200 branches and $188 billion in deposits.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath has given shareholders permission to question the hedge funds’ under oath and collect documents about their WaMu trades. Depositions of the hedge funds were scheduled to begin this month.
Any evidence they found could be used at a hearing Walrath scheduled for next month to decide whether to approve WaMu’s reorganization proposal.
Under the plan WaMu would distribute more than $7 billion in cash and tax refunds and reorganize a reinsurance company that has the right to offset taxes on future profits with losses from the former bank-holding company.
The case is In re Washington Mutual Inc., 08-12229, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
--Editors: John Pickering, Mary Romano
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Church in Wilmington, Delaware, at schurch3@bloomberg.net Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-20/wamu-creditors-shareholders-said-to-end-bankruptcy-fight.html
WaMu, Creditors, Shareholders Said to End Bankruptcy Fight
May 20, 2011, 2:45 PM EDT
More From Businessweek
By Steven Church and Linda Sandler
(Updates with names of accused hedge funds in fifth paragraph.)
May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc. and its biggest creditors agreed to settle a fight with shareholders by giving them control of the company that will emerge from bankruptcy, two people familiar with the proposal said.
The outline of the deal includes $25 million for a litigation trust that would bring lawsuits to collect more money for shareholders. In return, shareholders would drop allegations that hedge funds who own $2.54 billion of WaMu’s debt used confidential information to guide their investments.
How much the deal is worth to shareholders can’t be easily calculated because the value of the reinsurance company they will get relies in part on future tax breaks, one of the people said.
“That is impossible to assess,” one of the people said.
Shareholders are among the last opponents to WaMu’s reorganization plan, which would pay more than $7 billion to creditors, who are mostly unsecured note holders.
The deal would include the court-appointed committee of WaMu’s equity holders, WaMu, and four hedge funds who helped negotiate the current reorganization plan: Appaloosa Management LP, Centerbridge Partners LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP and Aurelius Capital Management LP.
Proposed Settlement
Details of the proposed settlement have not yet been decided and the deal could still fall through, one of the people said.
WaMu, based in Seattle, filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 26, 2008, the day after its banking unit was taken over by regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. Washington Mutual Bank was the biggest bank to fail in U.S. history, with more than 2,200 branches and $188 billion in deposits.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath has given shareholders permission to question the hedge funds’ under oath and collect documents about their WaMu trades. Depositions of the hedge funds were scheduled to begin this month.
Any evidence they found could be used at a hearing Walrath scheduled for next month to decide whether to approve WaMu’s reorganization proposal.
Under the plan WaMu would distribute more than $7 billion in cash and tax refunds and reorganize a reinsurance company that has the right to offset taxes on future profits with losses from the former bank-holding company.
The case is In re Washington Mutual Inc., 08-12229, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware (Wilmington).
--Editors: John Pickering, Mary Romano
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Church in Wilmington, Delaware, at schurch3@bloomberg.net Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-20/wamu-creditors-shareholders-said-to-end-bankruptcy-fight.html
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