WMIH PPS has surely moved up from its lows. Or, has it??? The PPS sitting below .50 a share, or a market cap of under 100mm, placed the value of WMIH at what many would consider below liquidation value. When you look back at the estimated value of WMIH based on what noteholders could do a debt exchange upon BK emergence ($10mm for 5% of WMIH or about $1 per share) or even Rosen's submitted conservative value (did not look up exact number, but it was between $120-140mm I believe), you would come up with PPS of at least .60 per share.
So, did it make sense for WMIH PPS to get taken down to the mid .40 area? Think about it. WMIH could be liquidated and likely get shareholders at least .60 per share. That is based on about 70mm cash on hand and a sale of WMMRC generating another 50mm in cash (conservatively.) Looking more closely, WMMRC has huge loss reserves that will surely create even greater value over time. Plus, WMIH still has around 6b in NOLs that should have some inherent value even if there is not any current profits to make use of them.
Now, the PPS sits at around .80 per share. Was the PPS brought down to the .40s and taken back up here to try to suck in sellers? In other words, did "they" push down the PPS to create the illusion that WMIH does NOT have much value and by taking PPS up to current prices hope to get retail to sell their shares as they take it back down from here. Sure looks like a smart idea to sell here when it looks like it is possible that WMIH will be taken back down to .50 area. Is this what "they" are hoping to accomplish?
Of course, maybe "they" were trying to suck in buyers now. Bringing up PPS has created the illusion that a deal is imminent that will surely lead to a much higher PPS. "They" want you to buy in now (by shorting shares to you) before it is too late only to take PPS back down and try to shake out those shares later after they have nice gains from what they shorted. This seems less plausible because retail longs already know that WMIH valuation had been pushed lower that liquidation value and lower prices are much more likely to stir up buying interest and not selling interest.
Anyway, I sense that the PPS movement has been an attempt to push out retail by creating the mindset that this is a chance to get some recovery (almost double what you could have gotten just a couple of months ago.) We may even see PPS head back to .60 range trying to shake out more retail as they worry about WMIH going even lower. I think "they" will ultimately realize that retail longs are not going to sell until PPS rises substantially higher than where it is now. Shoot, even preferred holders that were converted to WMIH shares are only looking at about 2% recovery (from par) with WMIH PPS at $1. That 2% is likely still less than what many paid for those preferred holdings. As for commons, WMIH PPS at $1 is a LOOONNNNGGG way from any kind of recovery.