Several selected upcoming Chancery Court trials or hearings will be available live for your online viewing and listening pleasure via www.courtroomlive.com next week. I expect to have video clips with excerpts in the near future.
One of the suits in which the famous Carl Icahn has an interest is styled: The Bank of New York Mellon and High River Limited Partnership v. Realogy. The backstory is available via Bloomberg here. A short summary of highlights from that article follow:
Apollo’s Realogy Corp., owner of the Century 21 and Coldwell Banker real estate brands, and Cerberus’s GMAC LLC, the General Motors Corp. financing arm, are among at least five companies owned by buyout firms that want junk bond investors to swap their securities for as little as 36 cents on the dollar.
Icahn, who holds Realogy debt, is suing the Parsippany, New Jersey-based company, saying its offer to swap about $1.1 billion of notes for as little as 36 cents on the dollar constitutes a “fraudulent” transfer of assets. Icahn declined to comment.
The suit pits two of the top private-equity investors, who used to work together on deals in the 1980s, against each other. Black was Icahn’s investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert.
Another Chancery Court matter involving a preliminary injunction hearing regarding the merger of PNC Bank and National City Bank, will be heard this week and will be available to watch online. An article with the details can be found here. Some highlights follow:
Chancellor William Chandler will hear arguments at an injunction hearing on December 15 in a class action shareholder suit seeking to block the takeover of First National Bank by PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
At least 10 lawsuits have been filed in Delaware and Ohio alleging that members of the National City board who elected to sell the Cleveland bank to PNC Financial Services Group Inc. for $2.23 a share — when the stock had closed at $2.75 a share on Oct. 23, the day before the deal was struck — breached their fiduciary duties in arranging the sale.
One lawsuit, in Delaware, claims that board members benefit from the deal more than shareholders. Another, filed in Ohio, says the board “mishandled” the merger discussions, which were “haphazardly executed.”
Lastly, a trial available live online in the following matter will be of particular interest to "numbers-crunchers":
IN RE: APPRAISAL OF METROMEDIA INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INC.
Plaintiffs, a group of hedge funds (listed below) will ask Chancellor William Chandler for an appraisal of Metromedia’s stock value after a merger with CaucusCom Mergerco Corp. in 2007. The trial is expected to last 4 days. The hedge funds (plaintiffs) include:
Zazove Associates LLC
Private Management Group Inc
Gracie Capital
Black Horse Capital LP
Black Horse
Capital QP LP
Black Horse Capital Offshore Ltd
Cohanzick Management LLC,
Lanphier Capital Management Inc
Milestone Vimba Fund LP
Ingalls & Snyder LLC
MSF 93 LP
Hedgehog Capital LLC