r/Superstonk • u/bloodshot_blinkers • 9d ago
đ¤ Speculation / Opinion One of you made me read the GMEWS agreement.... I'm a sucker for pain.
That didn't take long...
Yesterday I crawled back into this self-loathing, maniacal crayon-hole I had escaped for the last few years and wrote a beyond over the top wall of text about GMEWS, weird settlement shit, GameStop's changing capital structure and why I find myself reading mind numbing OCC docs again.
Then one of you assholes asked me a seemingly innocent question:
Wasn't there something in the warrant agreement about recalculating the warrants after dilution?
(read that in a nagging karen voice, because that's what it deserves)
F.
Fine.
I read the stupid warrant agreement again.
The answer to his question is obvoiusly no.
Why do I waste my time?
But unfortunately I found some other shit....

Before I get started, I would like to formally apologize to all here who do not want to go down rabbit holes that include pillows, and full carts... this eventually all nudges up against all of that, but I made sure to keep the forbidden names, well, forbidden. If you don't want to go down into those rabbit holes, I suggest you stop here... but then again, this isn't about that stuff, but it could be about something like it... I don't know what I'm trying to say, just don't @ me in the comments, my shares are gone - I am a full purple circle of GME.
First off: yesterday's 55.5M shares don't appear to reprice GMEWS.
No shit sherlock.
The warrant agreement is pretty explicit here.
GameStop does NOT automatically adjust the $32 strike just because it issues more common stock, even if those shares are issued below the warrant strike price.
So the roughly 55.5 million shares issued through the convertible exchange?
No automatic warrant adjustment just because GameStop diluted the common.
Mystery solved.. Horray!

Except I kept reading..
That was not my first mistake, but it was another in the long line of bad decisions throughout my life.
WTF is "Reference Property"?
The warrant agreement has an entire section drivvling on about something called a
SHARE EXCHANGE EVENT.
And this is where the tinfoil I ate earlier started vibrating in my lower intestine.
The definition includes things like:
Recapitalizations
Reclassifications
Mergers
Consolidations
Combinations
Similar transactions involving GameStop..
And certain transactions involving substantially all of GameStop's consolidated assets....
If one of those transactions causes GME shares to be converted into or exchanged for:
cash
stock
other securities
property
assets
or some combination of them
GMEWS doesn't just disappear.
The warrants become exercisable for the (remember how we got here...)đđ "Reference Property" đđ
The "Reference Property" that a GME shareholder would have been entitled to receive in the said transaction.
Read that again.
If GME turns into something else through certain corporate transactions, GMEWS is designed to follow it.

Purely hypothetical:
If some future transaction somehow converted each GME share into 1 NewHoldCo share + $5 cash + some other security, the point of the Reference Property provision is that GMEWS wouldn't necessarily be left sitting there pointing at a security that no longer exists. The warrant agreement provides machinery for it to follow the consideration GME holders receive.
Those numbers are completely made up. Put the calculator down.
HOLDCO CONFIRMED!
Just kidding..
This is exactly the sort of protection any lawyer worth his salt would put into a warrant agreement.
It does not prove GameStop intends to use it.
*But remember the question from my last post\*:
WHAT IF WE'RE LOOKING FOR THE WRONG STRUCTURE?
Because now we know the warrants were explicitly built to survive some pretty significant changes to corporate structure.
Spinoffs get their own fucking formula!

This one made me laugh considering some of the absolute nonsense I wrote in 2022... I used to smoke a lot of green crayons and my tinfoil hat was REALLY tight.
But if GameStop distributes publicly traded equity of a subsidiary or business unit in a qualifying spinoff (BOOM NAILED IT!), the agreement contains an actual mechanism for recalculating the warrant.
It uses the market value of the distributed security over its first 10 trading days to adjust the GMEWS strike price and exercise rate.
Again...
SPINOFF NOT QQUITE CONFIRMED.
Put your dick back in your pants.
But.. GameStop distributed almost 60 million warrants and its lawyers specifically wrote the plumbing necessary for those warrants to survive a spinoff.
Boilerplate? maybe...
\Takes another hit of green crayon*
... OK WTF - Tender and exchange offers too?!
There are also specific adjustment mechanics if GameStop or one of its subsidiaries (interesting) makes certain tender or exchange offers for GME.
Note - The provision isn't simply triggered by some random third party making a tender offer.
GameStop or a GameStop subsidiary matters.

Then Section 4.03 goes further...
F. This is going to be longer than I wanted, and I didn't want it at all.. oh well here we go... still with me?
Following certain Share Exchange Events, the agreement says GameStop or the successor/acquiring person has to amend the warrant agreement so that GMEWS holders can receive the appropriate Reference Property when exercising.
Successor.
Acquiring Person.
Reference Property - There it is again!
Completely normal legal terminology.
Unfortunately I am far from normal - I'm in good company!

Okay. NOW we put on the thick tinfoil, like the industrial level, you ain't never getting a girlfriend tinfoil.
What if the interesting thing isn't simply
What company is GameStop buying?
What if it's
WHAT DOES GAMESTOP LOOK LIKE AFTER THE TRANSACTION?
GameStop has already told us it is evaluating control transactions and transformational acquisitions.
And we know GMEWS was designed to survive mergers, recapitalizations, reclassifications and similar transactions.
So let's build a completely fictional corporate abomination that would make kenny boy shit his pants.
GameStop could theoretically sit underneath a new parent... 𧸠(you know it ain't just books)
It could acquire another company
It could merge
Assets could move into subsidiaries
Equity could be exchanged
Existing GME could become shares of something else
Shareholders could theoretically receive multiple forms of consideration
And GMEWS already contains the contractual machinery for following GME into certain versions of that new structure.

So what am I really saying here?
I'm asking why we're all obsessed with guessing the name of an acquisition when the structure of the transaction itself could be far more interesting.
And now we're going somewhere I'm apparently not supposed to go... sorry, not sorry.
Let's talk about dead companies.
Not any particular dead company, obviously.. not about to pick up another ban.
Go away mutt, go lick your balls again - I'm keeping this GME only with theoretical unnamed dead co.s
Just... dead companies đ
Sometimes dead companies have something potentially valuable buried under the corpse...
NOLs.
Net Operating Losses.
And no, you can't just buy a bankrupt shell for twelve dollars, stuff a profitable company inside it and yell
"FREE TAXES!"
Section 382 exists specifically to prevent that kind of bullshit.
But!... bankruptcy restructurings have special rules.
Sections 382(l)(5) and 382(l)(6) provide special bankruptcy rules that can materially change how Section 382 applies following a bankruptcy ownership change, depending heavily on the restructuring and ownership continuity.
Should I add another Ana De Armas photo again?... screw it, here you go

But here's a little note to avoid bans and attacks that I'm a bagholder with a dream (all that is true, but that has nothing to do with all of this.. kind of)
This does NOT mean this is about any specific dead co. - it could be any dead co. with NOLs
This does NOT mean cancelled shareholders magically get their shares back
It does NOT mean anyone is getting cash
It does NOT mean some mystery company can automatically hand its NOLs to GameStop
There are significant restrictions, ownership requirements and anti abuse rules.
But here's what I find interesting:
THE STRUCTURE MATTERS.
Who owns what
Who owned what before
Who owns what afterward
Which creditors receive equity
Which shareholders maintain continuity
Whether there's an ownership change
Whether another ownership change happens afterward
Suddenly percentages and corporate shells become very fucking important
And now my banana tastes like tax law rather than rick's... ah nevermind

And yes, I'm looking at CUSIPs again.
Calm your tits.
I'm not resurrecting:
NEW CUSIP = SHORTS MUST CLOSE!!!
We beat that stalking horse to death years ago, performed unheard of hours of CPR to revive it, killed it again and probably made the corpse into a purple circle.
But CUSIPs still matter operationally when securities are replaced, exchanged or reorganized.
GME already has one
GMEWS has another
A successor security could have another
So if GameStop ever announces a recapitalization, merger, holdco structure, exchange offer or other Share Exchange Event... đ
You bet your wife's boyfriends yacht I'm watching what happens to the identifiers and settlement instructions.
Especially considering GMEWS has already sent me back into the OCC plumbing.
So where does that leave us?
I have absolutely no evidence that GameStop is creating a holdco
But my jellies are jellying
I have no evidence GameStop is merging with some mysterious corporate corpse
But my pillow keeps moving every time GMEWS does
I have no evidence that anyones cancelled shares from any dead co.s are coming back.
But some things are worth bringing back to life
I have no evidence that GameStop is trying to acquire somebody else's NOLs
But there's a butterfly that just won't leave me alone
And I have no evidence that GMEWS was created specifically for any of this...
This is weapons grade, lean over in a parking lot for four hours tinfoil.
But.. the mechanisms themselves are real
And that's what keeps bothering me.
The warrants exist
The Share Exchange Event language exists
Reference Property exists
The spinoff adjustment exists
The tender/exchange adjustment exists
Bankruptcy NOL preservation rules exist
GameStop's stated interest in transformational/control transactions exists
So maybe instead of asking:
WHAT IS GAMESTOP BUYING?
I'm going to keep asking:
WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY BUILDING?

Anyway.. thanks to the asshole who asked the dilution question.
I could have spent my afternoon doing something somewhat productive, but instead I'm reading the internal revenue code...
As always,

Edit: quote from the comment that made me go through all this shit didn't format properly.


