If I'm hearing the news correctly, since the regulated futures business was potentially sold before they filed CH 11, the proceeds should not go to debt holders but to the equity shareholders. Of course there's no guarantee that this deal with JC Flowers will be completed as agreed since it's only a letter of agreement. Am I missing something? Any constructive comments will be appreciated. Thanks!
Refco (the parent holding company) has around $1.2B in debt, of which I believe around 600M is senior sub-ordinated. Details are still sketchy as to what JC Flowers bought, whether they would assume partial debt, or cash, etc. Before anyone says "this deal has to include the $750M in cash", it may not, it may only include sufficient cash to maintain Refco's reg capital requirements (and therefore continue to function), no one (outside of the involved party) is clear this point. A clean sale would be that Refco Holdings would retain all the debt obligations, and the cash, so Flowers and partners would need to re-capitalize Refco LLC after completion of the purchase. But this doesn't make sense that Flowers paid $768M for an operating shell with no capital, so there must be some cash included in the deal. Regardless, RFX as a stock is of little value at this point, it seems that they would just sell off any functions pieces, and let it sort out in bankrupcy court.
Unlikely this would happen. Remember that the banks loaned Refco a bunch of money and they could ask for repayment.
Does anyone know what will happen to the existing equity shares if JC Flowers does indeed take the regulated futures business private? If we get to own a piece of the private company I would definitely buy some at lower levels (under a $1). This could be a good 1-2 year investment opportunity until the next IPO. Though if this really is the case, there's no way Refco will trade under a $1 once it resumes trading on the pink sheets. Do I have this wrong again? Thanks in advance for any constructive comments.
No, you don't own equity shares in the JC Flowers Futures Inc. (or whatever they chose to call it), you own equity shares in Refco Inc, the parent company. The same company that has just entered into chapter 11. The JC Flowers Futures firm is entirely private, with no public shareholders. This is no different from GM selling GMAC, for instance. Usually the proceeds from the sale are either absorbed into the parent company, or, in some cases, a special one-time distribution to the shareholders.
OK. I did not see this mentioned on this thread so in case you guys are interested, Refco is already trading on pinksheets under RFXCQ. So far 15.7M shares between $0.75 and $1.55. It's pretty sad.