May. 2 at 6:44 PM
$CLSD What Steel Partners did at Steel Connect:
They issued themselves 16% of the company in convertible preferred stock in 2017, then later tried to take the company private with lowball offers while minority shareholders argued the company's
$2.X billion in NOLs were being drastically undervalued. (Specialsituationinvestments) This led to a lawsuit — Reith v. Lichtenstein — alleging breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment in connection with the issuance of
$35 million in Series C Convertible Preferred Stock to Steel Partners affiliates. (sec) It ultimately settled for
$6 million, with Steel Partners and its affiliates waiving their right to any portion of that distribution (Investing.com) — an implicit acknowledgment that minority shareholders had been harmed.
The NOL parallel is striking. The Steel Connect playbook was: get control of a company with massive NOLs, use them for your own benefit, and give minority shareholders as little as possible.