Rook,
You left out RME's pre-2008 and the restricted shares held by management.
Here's one way of calculating the short position:
849M TA's last reported number for O/S
-660M for RME (unregistered and covered by buyback option)
-42M for RME (pre-2008, maybe there are some more??)
-25M for management (unregistered shares per 10K)
======
122M in float pre buyback (float defined as O/S-restr-insider)
122M float
-50M anticipated buyback (mostly complete)
-41M for Doug Furth
-60M for Doug's Crew
-50M for BMAS
-50M held by Ihub board members
-40M on Yahoo (net of double-counting for Doug's crew)
-100M for remaining 2000 investors (50K average)
=====
-270M short position
OK, the Transfer Agent has been gagged and we do not really know the O/S, so 849M might be low. But it could not be more than 950M without an increase in the A/S. So, maybe I am 100M high on the short position and it is only 170M.
Then again, I think I am low on the pre-2008 shares issued to RME (I have seen an SEC entry of 42M, but there might be more that I cannot ferret out). FFF will tell us that these have been sold. Management denies this and points out they were unregistered. OK, even if they are all gone into the float (because RME is not smart enough to see the potential for a short squeeze). We still have 128M short.
And I believe BMAS has purchased more than 50M. The 48M was a year-to-date total as of the end of October. A small portion were from early in the year and perhaps not related. But I think maybe 45M were more recent. And I wouldn't be surprised if they bought another 10M in November -- so far.
And then what if management has made insider purchases? What if Furth has purchased more? What if management's friends and family and employees hold $3M worth? This is not at all implausible (I would be shocked if it were not this high), but then we'd need to add in another 100M...
So, I get about 120M to 300M short.
I'd really appreciate anyone making good faith efforts to improve my math.
Wadi Rum
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