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ZINC - Horsehead Holding Corp


wknecht

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Guest roark33

seriously missed the debt payment!?

 

      Have they even explored the sale of Inmetco and Zochem prior to wiping out total long-term equity value for investors.

 

      Management should be sued for how they are handling this.

 

I don't think you should blame mgmt.  I think you should think about the fallacy of sum of the parts analysis.  More importantly, in the end, those assets may be the only thing that are worth anything in this company.  Also, when there is blood in the water, which all sophisticated buyers of those assets were aware of for the past 12 months, no one will bid rationally. 

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Guest Grey512

Who else is excited for Pabrai's next original idea?  I know I am.

 

completely agree with you. whatever the outcome with zinc, i'm done with following Pabrai's ideas.

 

The thing is Pabrai appears to have convinced Guy Spier to jump in as well. Wow.

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It does seem pretty early for them to start defaulting on coupons?  They currently have enough money to pay?

 

Yes, especially since the actual size of the coupon is very small, but if they are negotiating with secured bondholders it negatively colors the negotiation to be paying out cash (which impaired secured creditors will view as rightfully theirs) to junior creditors.

 

You can't expect that the company will keep playing out the string until it has no liquidity - if its going to file it would want to do so with meaningful cash on the balance sheet.

 

The obvious assumption to make is that they are working on a bankruptcy plan with the secured lenders - you'd have to figure equity and convert holders stand to be wiped out here.

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Guest anilpandit

We should demand that the company come out with press release regarding this inform us timely what is going on with the company. I think this  board of directors need to be fired too not only management. What are they doing and what are they thinking.

 

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When are they required to file an 8K stating they didn't pay?  Surely this is material information for the public.  I fail how anyone can defend the fairness of public equity markets in situations like this - where the average retail investor is clearly at a massive disadvantage when it comes to MNPI

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I sent a note to Mr. Alavi inquiring about the status of the coupon payment; whether or not he can confirm the Debtwire report; and if the company will be issuing an 8k to update investors.

 

The likelihood of receiving a response from Mr. Alavi is very low. However, if I hear back, I will share what I learn.

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To my surprise, Mr. Alavi responded quite promptly. Here is the correspondence I received from him:

 

I wouldn't say we "missed a payment."  It's sort of like your mortgage payment whereby there is a grace period during which payment can be received and still be considered timely.

 

He did not offer a comment on whether or not the company will be filing an 8k to discuss the matter.

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To my surprise, Mr. Alavi responded quite promptly. Here is the correspondence I received from him:

 

I wouldn't say we "missed a payment."  It's sort of like your mortgage payment whereby there is a grace period during which payment can be received and still be considered timely.

 

He did not offer a comment on whether or not the company will be filing an 8k to discuss the matter.

 

LOL.  Probably got lost in the mail.

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Either way they look like they are in big trouble and it will be a wipeout for the commons.

The management has zero credibility at this stage and have demonstrated utter incompetence. A 6 yr old at a lemonade stand could have done a far better job than these clowns. Their integrity is highly questionable in my opinion, to say nothing of their incompetence.

 

I guess the lesson here is not to clone a cloner who comes out with an original idea. I know Pabrai has had some that have gone to zero previously, pinnacle airlines comes to mind. I don't think ever on this scale however. I don't know what sort of checklist Pabrai has but it sure is not anywhere near bullet proof. What's worse is his position sizing is so haphazard that its starting to look a bit like gambling. I just checked the 13Fs and this POS was almost a third of dalal street 13f portfolio at one stage ie end of 2014. Since I'm not aware of any substantial selling, and he added significantly at circa $8, if this goes to 0, its like a 1/3 hit to the portfolio.

I think it is safe to say he won't be earning incentive compensation for a while now. What's worse, I don't think he will have an easy time raising $$ either. As for the permanent capital story, that's a fair point to make around a time of crisis like 2008/9 but this is clearly a massive error of commision with what looks like a high likelihood of a permanent loss of capital. The point about permanent capital is irrelevant with these types of investments. That only works for concerns about volatility.

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Mohnish should be listening to the Eminem song "lose yourself" and take over this company.

 

Comment of the year right here.

 

Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment

Would you capture it, or just let it slip?

Yo

 

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy

There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti

He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs,

But he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down,

The whole crowd goes so loud

He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out

He's choking how, everybody's joking now

The clock's run out, time's up, over, blaow!

 

I like how management is saying they haven't "technically" missed the payment.  This isn't a mortgage payment we're talking about. 

 

Pabrai should do that preferred stock deal I was talking about.  But now he would have to worry about whether "the check is in the mail."  Good times...

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I feel like an ultra-contrarian on a message board full of contrarians, but I find it likely that the liquidation tangible assets minus debt > current market cap.

 

But as this stock has always been, it's basically a gamble.

 

Yep. I've gambled and lost. The question is to double or not. Looks like the PP&E worth more than debts. Who's buying the high yield debt today? Anyone has any experience dealing with a high yield debt of a bankrupt company before? Can you do this yourself or do you need outside expert to go through paperwork, etc?

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I feel like an ultra-contrarian on a message board full of contrarians, but I find it likely that the liquidation tangible assets minus debt > current market cap.

 

But as this stock has always been, it's basically a gamble.

 

That really only matters in a liquidation scenario. If they file for Ch. 11, the entire value is predicated on the negotiations with bondholders and what the pound of flesh they extract for the restructuring is worth. Maybe the whole company is worth more than it's debt, but if the bondholders capture a large chunk of the company's value, does it matter?

 

I have no idea how the equity gets valued in bankruptcy proceedings, but I bet it will be at a discount to the current market price which means that the company will be negotiating with the potential for massive dilution as the company will be issuing stock at sub-$1 levels. Even if tangible equity value is largely positive, if you're giving 40-50% of that away to bondholders in newly minted shares than it may not matter...

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