Bankruptcy judge rejects The Onion’s bid to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars
Bankruptcy judge rejects The Onion’s bid to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars
The ruling dashed, at least for now, the plans of The Onion’s parent company to take over Infowars and radically shift its content.
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Law is 90% like process (number made-up). You need to follow the same process for everybody. You follow the same process and nobody sues later claiming "I was mistreated". This is an entirely reasonable decision by the judge.
But this is not what happened.
but he said the trustee did not run a transparent process and should have given a rival bidder associated with Jones another chance to improve its bid.
They are not telling the onion to offer more money, they are giving the one with the highest bid the chance to make it even bigger.
This is highly unusual to be honest. But it was unusual from the beginning.
They are not telling the onion to offer more money, they are giving the one with the highest bid the chance to make it even bigger.
No, the Jones-affiliated bidder had a smaller bid, but should've been given the opportunity to try to outbid the then-highest bid from the Onion.
Basically the judge said that the trustee, as auctioneer, should've gotten the two bidders into a bidding war to maximize the price.
A rival bidder associated with Jones, First United American Cos., offered $3.5 million in cash, or twice as much cash as The Onion’s parent company. First United American is a limited liability company affiliated with Jones’ dietary supplements business, and its bid had Jones’ blessing.
The Jones one was the largest of the two, but the onion was favored by the families
The value of the Onion's bid was $7 million ($1.75 million in cash, $5.25 million in credit), when you include the credit bids from the families. That's where you're getting tripped up in trying to understand what the court was ruling.
No, there was no 5.25 in credit. I'm happy to see any source for that claim though.
There was some future payments promised and a better than usual split for some families, so they "valued" the bid at 7 million.
a better than usual split for some families
That is exactly what counts as credit in this case, because this split is made possible by some other families crediting the bid. Basically writing "i dont want this money give it to someone else" on a figurative piece of paper and bidding with that instead of cash.
So even with that definition, there was no 7 millions anywhere. Thanks
There was some future payments promised
It's not future payments promised. Just a division of who to split the proceeds with. And so for the typical creditor who didn't credit bid, The Onion's bid was worth the equivalent of a $7 million cash bid, and therefore was more valuable than the Jones affiliates' $3.5 million cash bid.
It's just math. The Onion bid was higher, and the judge said that the losing bid should've been given an opportunity to improve the bid to get a chance to win, and maybe raise even more money.
Murray valued it at that amount, it didn't have that real value. Even future payments were a percentage of profits and but not guaranteed.
That equivalence is only theoretical, not real. If you think they can write "it's 7 million but I let you hav 5.75, then we can have the bid at 99 trillions! Why not? They can just say they only Want 1.25.
Even future payments were a percentage of profits and but not guaranteed.
That's not part of the bid. The bid only had two components: a cash portion and a commitment to reduce claims by certain creditors. For non-participating creditors, it's the exact same equivalent as a $7 million cash payment to the estate.
Future promises were made to families to incentivize them to reduce their claims (and therefore bring more money to the estate), but that's not part of the bid itself.
I think you're struggling to understand what's happening here because you're so anchored on your initial incorrect perceptions.
I'm only struggling with keeping with your mental gymnastics.
I get it, you want the onion to win. Me too. That shouldn't mean we make up the facts.
That shouldn't mean we make up the facts.
You're the one getting facts wrong!
You've said that the Jones-affiliated bid was higher, which is incorrect. The Onion's $7 million bid was higher, which is why the bankruptcy judge said that the other bidder should've been given an opportunity to improve its bid.
You've said that the $7 million valuation wasn't based on anything. It's a straightforward formula for determining the value when to reduce the claims of the creditors who wanted to credit bid.
You've said that the $7 million valuation was made up based on estimates of future cash flows. Future payments have nothing to do with the bid, and weren't used in the formula to calculate the value at $7 million. That value is how much this bid brings to the estate immediately.
They are not telling the onion to offer more money, they are giving the one with the highest bid the chance to make it even bigger.
It doesn't sound like that's happening - just that they should have known about what was happening more.
Honestly the reporting on this sucks. We'll need to wait for some legal commentators to weigh in on how unusual or standard this is and what happens next.
A rival bidder associated with Jones, First United American Cos., offered $3.5 million in cash, or twice as much cash as The Onion’s parent company. First United American is a limited liability company affiliated with Jones’ dietary supplements business, and its bid had Jones’ blessing.
The reporting is OK, you need to read past the headline
Piss off? I read the rest of the article. In fact it says this:
It was not immediately clear whether there would be a new auction in which The Onion could bid again for Jones’ assets. Lopez said he would leave the decision about what to do next in the hands of the trustee, Christopher Murray, who had overseen the auction.
That is a far cry from
they are giving the one with the highest bid the chance to make it even biggerby a long shot.So no need to be weirdly aggressive about my reading skills. The reporting so far is thin and being done by reporters who don't know the law enough about what happens next.