The Reason For GT Advanced Technologies Shocking Bankruptcy: "Severe Liquidity Crisis"
Those wondering why Apple's favorite sapphire glass maker shockingly went from a market cap of $1.5 billion to $0 (net of 45% of the market cap being short, trying to cover and pushing the stock price briefly just above $0.00) in the span of milliseconds include the "smart money" investors Fidelity, Blackrock and Wellington which collectively owned almost 30% of the company...
We will not get an answer for a while, and certainly not from the public filings, all of which provided a picture of a company that was apparently in good health and worth well over $1 billion, thus making one wonder how much 10(b)-5 fraud there is in this bankruptcy.
One certainly won't get it from Stifel's Sven Eenmaa or Cowen's Jeffrey Osborne, both of whom had the stock at a "Buy" as recently as Friday with a $20 and $18 price target.
In fact, the only piece of information that provides some clarity on what happened leading to the stunning Chapter 11 filing out of the blue, is the following brief blurb in the first day motions:
EVENTS LEADING TO CHAPTER 11
GTAT is facing a severe liquidity crisis due to circumstances that will be more fully described at the hearing on the First Day Pleadings.
Why not explain now? Did "key customer" Apple have something to do with the gag order?
Because as anyone who lost 90% of their equity in seconds earlier today (after listening to others such as Cramer extoll the virtues of the next Bear Steanrs) found out, yes: the company does indeed have a severe liquidity crisis.
In any case, while there is not much there, the full declaration in support of first-day motions is presented below:
The complete GTAT Ex-Parte motion to preserve the company's biggest remaining asset, its NOLs:
We'll spare you the full list of creditors, all 459 pages of them. Suffice to say that Apple is among them.
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More on this story is here: http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/stocks--equities/gtat-advanced-technology-gtat-files-for-bankruptcy?post=50489
Here's a possibility, from Business Insider:
"At least one analyst Business Insider heard from after the announcement sees one possible reason for the sudden change from GT Advanced: Apple pulled the plug.
"Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst with Cowen & Co., wrote that Apple, which lent GT $578 million as part of a supply agreement last November, 'had the ability to call the interest free loan back and it appears they have done that.'"
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/gt-advanced-files-for-bankruptcy-oct-6-2014-10#ixzz3FOtJG1oL
Wow. If true, and that certainly seems plausible, it's like sabotage. Apple loaned them the money to begin producing all of those furnaces...calling the loan back within a year when all of the funds they had loaned them presumably went into capex - a liquidity crisis would certainly ensue. Clearly they didn't loan them the money to have them deposit into the bank and wait.
Doesn't paint the brightest picture of Apple. While the $$ is a drop in the bucket for them - it's a PR black eye
Well, I don't know since we don't know the full story. Might be GTAT made promises and failed to deliver. That makes more sense to me as a pure guess.
There's been quite a bit of insider selling, up until about a month ago.