The only chance
By contrast, in Kodak's case, the odds of a big payoff for current shareholders looks slim. In its bankruptcy filing, Kodak listed $5.1 billion in assets versus $6.8 billion in debt, including a huge group of unsecured creditors who will scurry to recover any portion of their losses that they can.
The wild card, though, is the portfolio of patents that Kodak has thus far been unable to sell. One company lawyer's estimates put the value of the patents at $2.2 billion to $2.6 billion, but if a bidding war were to erupt, then it's at least theoretically possible that a higher price would wipe out the $1.7 billion shortfall between listed asset value and debt, leaving shareholders a chance of recovery.
www.fool.com/investing/beginning/2012/01/...make-you-rich.aspx
By contrast, in Kodak's case, the odds of a big payoff for current shareholders looks slim. In its bankruptcy filing, Kodak listed $5.1 billion in assets versus $6.8 billion in debt, including a huge group of unsecured creditors who will scurry to recover any portion of their losses that they can.
The wild card, though, is the portfolio of patents that Kodak has thus far been unable to sell. One company lawyer's estimates put the value of the patents at $2.2 billion to $2.6 billion, but if a bidding war were to erupt, then it's at least theoretically possible that a higher price would wipe out the $1.7 billion shortfall between listed asset value and debt, leaving shareholders a chance of recovery.
www.fool.com/investing/beginning/2012/01/...make-you-rich.aspx