Holy Moly!
Never heard of this company even.
Got another oddball story for you then ...
Back in 2008 during the GFC I bought shares in CHANNELL COMMERCIAL which makes those lime green colored connector boxes for cable internet. To my surprise these shares fell another 90%, so a year later I doubled down at $0.05/sh. They then "went dark" (delisted/deregistered) in March 2012, and this position moved to "unpriced securities" (aka zero market value). I was amazed because the company didn't seem to me to be distressed based on its SEC Edgar filings, but those are the breaks in microcap investing.
Suddenly in July 2020 this position paid a dividend of $0.30/sh which was a surprise to me, but I was glad to get back to even albeit a decade later. Then in Sept 2022 it paid another dividend of $0.36/sh, another surprise because it's still an "unpriced security", but great to get a small return! Then in July 2023 another $0.36/sh -- now I'm thinking this investment was pretty good if it returns almost double my original principal every year, even if only after a 10-year hiatus.
Well that didn't quite pan out, in Apr 2024 their dividend jumped to $2.95/sh. And an even bigger surprise six months later came another dividend of $23.55/sh. I thought this last payment must be a mistake, it must be proceeds from the sale of the company? But no, it was a dividend; the sale of the company paid out in June of 2025 to the tune of $96.81/sh! Plus an earnout of up to $18/sh was promised for 2026 depending upon business results.
Once again these guys overdelivered, they paid the earnout between Oct and Dec of 2025 and it amounted to $19.76/sh. But that change was bad for me because the 2025 paydate went into tax year 2025, and the earnout was marked "Box-B" short-term capital gains because the CVR was acquired on the date of sale.
The sad part is that if this were a stock merger instead of a cash merger, the shares of the acquirer have since doubled, and the income tax savings alone would have been more than the earnout. No shareholder vote because the founder's family owned 85%, and apparently cash (and a jet) is what they wanted.
Apologies for the long winded story, but there's a lesson here I think -- if you own shares in something that goes dark and if you don't need the tax-loss, don't surrender your position to your broker who will usually buy your position for nada. There's no carrying cost for such positions (I have lots of these) at the brokers I use.
