http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/washington-mutual-inc-files-amended-plan-of-reorganization-and-disclosure-statement-93926479.html
By Peg Brickley
Of DOW JONES DAILY BANKRUPTCY REVIEW
Washington Mutual Inc. (WAMUQ) revised its Chapter 11 distribution scheme,
offering bondholders of the thrift that it lost to regulators $150 million to
drop claims they contend are worth billions of dollars.
Former parent of Washington Mutual Bank, or WaMu, Washington Mutual Inc.
landed in bankruptcy in September 2008 after regulators seized the thrift that
was its main operating unit.
There's still nothing for shareholders of the Seattle bank holding company in
the revised Chapter 11 plan sketched out in filings Sunday and Monday with the
U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
Washington Mutual's Chapter 11 proposal is scheduled for preliminary court
review Wednesday.
As in its original plan, Washington Mutual Inc. promised payment in full to
most creditors, thanks to settlements that will bring more than $6.6 billion
into the bankruptcy coffers.
Most of the money, $4 billion, is cash already in Washington Mutual bank
accounts at WaMu.
Another $2.3 billion to $2.6 billion will come from tax refunds, once the
losses from WaMu's collapse are counted against past taxes paid.
Washington Mutual's Chapter 11 plan has met stiff opposition from
shareholders and from bondholders whose debts track to the lost thrift, rather
than to the parent company.
Shareholders say the failed bank-holding company is trading away valuable
legal claims for just enough to cover its own debts, instead of fighting for
enough money to take care of all those hurt in WaMu's collapse.
WaMu bondholders blame the former parent company, Washington Mutual, for
allowing WaMu to be swept up in the panic that beset the financial markets in
the fall of 2008.
They also blame the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for brokering a
bargain-basement sale of WaMu, which put the ailing thrift into J.P. Morgan
Chase & Co.'s (JPM) hands for only $1.9 billion.
Like the original Chapter 11 plan, Washington Mutual's new plan would block
most of the legal action that erupted in the wake of the WaMu sale.
It gives the FDIC up to $850 million from the tax refunds that are coming in,
which could total as much as $5.8 billion. The FDIC is serving as receiver for
WaMu's creditors, charged with finding a way to cover more than $13 billion in
debt the thrift left behind.
J.P. Morgan gets from $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion of the tax refund cash,
under the settlement spelled out in Washington Mutual's Chapter 11 plan.
(Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review covers news about distressed companies and
those under bankruptcy protection.)
-By Peg Brickley, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review; 302-521-2266;
[email protected]
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