Buen analisis de lo que esta ocurriendo
My impression is that the recent change largely redistributes what would have been the FDIC's portion of the tax refunds to the WMB bondholders under certain conditions. This causes me to have several observations:
1. It is transparently obvious that there was a problem with all previous variations of distributing money to the FDIC since the FDIC admits there has been no cost to them as FDIC=Corporate and there is no reason for FDIC-Receiver to get anything from the Estate as the bidder was JPM not WMI. Therefore, there is no room to pay the FDIC anything.
2. Since the money can't go to the FDIC and since Rosen needs to tuck assets away from the Estate, the variation of this POR tries to give refunds to WMB bondholders directly (rather than through the Receivership) and the WMB bondholders have already been told by the court that there is no soup for them. The Estate owes nothing whatsoever to the WMB bondholders. Their only recourse is the FDIC-Receivership.
3. There were some attempts to make a quick buck in WMB bonds by post-bondholders (yes, I think pre and post actually makes a case with regard to WMB bonds only). Pre-seizure WMB bonds have some right to complain that they should have been notified of the condition of the bank after appropriate disclosure from regulators which the FDIC and OTS failed to do before seizing the bank. Post-seizure WMB bondholders had their eyes wide open when they bought failed bonds in a Receivership with a disclosed sale price that could only provide approximately 35 cents for Seniors and nothing for Juniors. I suspect the failed WMB bondholders include not only the likes of the Jackson227 crowd but also the deeper pockets of Fried Frank and friends. However, the FDIC answer to post-seizure WMB bonds will have to be only what is in the Receivership and that money will not be coming from WMI.
4. It seems likely to me that the very conditional expense of $335 million is an attempt to recoup money to the failed post-bondholders who are insiders in the bankruptcy reorganization. Those parties found out that they couldn't gain a full payout on failed post-bonds and now want a special opportunity from the Estate. Well, I just don't believe that would ever be allowed but maybe they will be able to fool someone else into buying their failed paper products instead. That is exactly what I thought when I saw the Starke comments recently that those boys were trying to create interest in failed WMB post-bonds because they firmly concluded their would be no hope for any payout once a Trustee is placed after the Examiner's report.
5. The election for those WMB bondholders to take a slice of $335 millions seems only attractive for post-seizure bondholders as pre-seizure WMB bondholders may still have a completely separate hope for recovery from the failure of regulators or through their ability to lean on JPM for other assets if the bonds were "covered".
In these comments I have only been talking about WMB bonds. The case for WMI bonds is completely different. WMI shares also is a different case because the WMI stocks and bonds have a different pool to make their recovery from rather than the WMB-Receivership.