Replies to post #94681 on DD Support Board and Research Team

[janice shell]

You're right. And did you know that CRGP paid a stock dividend with the same record and pay dates as the special cash divvy? A recipe for confusion.

AND it did a simultaneous buyback, though it was issuing hundreds of millions of shares at the same time...

[1manband]

Special dividends on exchange traded stocks are few and really interesting situations for both longs and shorts given the longer time frame to payout and due bill.

Special dividends are rare, but in order to minimize the problems the record, payment, and ex-dividend dates of specials are very close together. A couple days, usually.

This case is unusual because it was originally declared as a regular quarterly dividend. In that situation, the extended dates would not have been unusual, or even normal. At some point, however, it was changed to a special ex-post facto. That is what screwed things up and allowed the Company and their affiliates to profit and maybe also allowed the Company to actually pay only a portion of the total amount due, which means they may have really gamed the system and pocketed millions.