I don't think the way this is being interpreted here makes any sense whatsoever. For example, the debtors give the judge the authority to choose the pps from December 12, 2011 as the divisor (which I am guessing was maybe about 6 cents on that date). Let's just assume, for the purposes of demonstration only, that the judge goes with the December 12, 2011 closing pps. Divide $35m by $0.06 (I am just guessing it was around 6 cents). The result would be nearly 600,000,000 shares. That would be 3X the the number of shares that are to be initially issued by the newco. So, obviously the formula is not intended to be applied the way that has been suggested here. There must be another application intended.
I think the words pro rata are key. In order to determine PFG's pro rata share of commons distribution, you first determine how many common shares PFG's $35m would "convert" into (the result being "X"). Then you add X to the existing 1.7 billion shares. Then you divide X by (1.7bil + X). That gives you PFG's deemed percentage ownership of commons and their pro rata share of commons' distribution.
If the judge uses the $1.69 pps number as the divisor, that would mean that the $35m would equal 20,710,059 common shares. Add that to 1.7bil, and then divide the result into the 20,710,059. That gives about 1.22%. So PFG would be deemed to own about 1.22% of all commons, and that would be their cut, 1.22% of the shares distributed to commons. Commons are getting 25% of 95%, or 23.75% of newco, or 47,500,000 shares. And PFG would be getting about 580,000 of those newco shares, not much at all.
If she uses the December 12, 2011, pps, that would equate to some 600,000,000 shares. Add that to the 1.7 billion and you get 2.3 bil. 600m shares is about 26% of 2.3 bil. So, under this approach PFG would get 26% of the shares distributed to commons, or 12,350,000 of the 47,500,000 newco shares to be distributed to commons.