[adios]

Altria is the new name for Phillip Morris. Apparently there's a 12 billion dollar judgement against them in Illonois. From my reading of the situation Altria may be forced to post a $12 billion dollar bond while the verdict is being appealed. There's a problem with that scenario, Altria doesn't have $12 billion. In fact tangible BV is NEGATIVE. Moody's today downgraded Altria's corporate debt 2 notches. They're not going to get a big loan from anyone. Debt to equity ratio is 1.2 to 1 so it's not horrid but leveraged none the less. Altria is trying to get some special legislation in Illonios to put up less than the $12 billion. Anti-smoking groups want to keep Altria's feet to the fire to try and force a lucrative settlement for the plaintives. Altria could be forced into bankruptcy and I have no idea how equity holders would fair in a chapter 11 re-org but usually they don't fair well. This anit-smoking case was in regards to false advertising of low tar cigarettes. One bummer about shorting Altria is they have a high yield now so you'd have to pony up the dividend when it came due. I haven't tried to short it yet myself so I don't know if shares are available to short or not. Probably so. I'm not going short tomorrow as I'm going to crunch some numbers. I also want to understand the settlements they've made along the line.