Trident Microsystems, Inc.(fka TRIDQ)

[eastunder]

Trident Microsystems Completes Sale of TV Business; Seeks Permission to Expedite Sale of Audio Unit

http://thediligentinvestor.blogspot.com/2012/05/trident-microsystems-completes-sale-of.html

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012, Trident Microsystems filed an 8-k with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing that the Company had closed on the sale of its TV Division to Sigma Designs, Inc., and that it received a total of $42.2 million cash. The original headline number of $21 million was increased by $21.2 million due to current asset adjustments.

Follow the link below to see the 8-k and the accompanying Exhibit 99.1.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/859475/000119312512218376/0001193125-12-218376-index.htm


The Debtors also filed papers in Court today seeking permission to sell its Audio Business by May 21, 2012, a very aggressive timeline under any circumstances. The Debtors represented that they and their Financial Advisors had already conducted a thorough marketing of the business unit and that Cambridge Silicon Radio Limited had emerged as the only interested party. As part of the Asset Purchase Agreement, Trident will receive $900,000 plus Cambridge will assume certain related liabilities. See [Dkt. No. 546].


Now that the sales of the Set Top Box and TV Business units have closed and a buyer is lined up to purchase the Audio Business, the next news we should expect to hear on the liquidation front would be with respect to the sale of the Patent Portfolio and the sale or wind down of the Demod Business.


Readers should note that the closing of the STB and TV Units may well mark the point in the case where halcyon times may give way to discord and divisiveness, at least for a while; not so much between the Debtors and any of their Committees but rather between the Equity Committee and NXP. Given that the Equity Committee has filed a Motion for a Rule 2004 Exam of NXP as well as certain of its affiliates and directors and given that NXP has been non-responsive to any related requests for production of documents or tendering of witnesses for deposition, to say the least, it is going to get very interesting. While it is early in the process to know anything for a certainty, suffice it to say the Rule 2004 Exam Motion filed by the Equity Committee provides a broad outline of a set of transactions the contours of which would appear to suggest that the purported business relationship between NXP and the Debtors may instead be tantamount to the archetypal Parasite/Host relationship. The Rule 2004 Exam motion will be heard before the Honorable Judge Sontchi on May 15, 2012.


The case is, In re Trident Microsystems, Inc., et al., Case No. 12-10069 (CSS)