pomhat, without gas flows, and not knowing if there is any ability to extract the gas, or determine whether it has evaporated or not (as some have suggested).... then yes, I would imagine an offer of $25mil to take it off their hands seemed quite appealing for whatever the reasons (perceived crap asset or otherwise)....
They could however have simply put it to the market and possibly received the same amount for a non-productive asset.... but again, a quick $25mil to get rid of it is 9 times out of 10 the right option for a bank.... refusing an offer like that also then adds further losses through time value of money, opportunity cost of using further internal bank resources etc.
Had the bank not had the TPG offer, then I would imagine shareholders would certainly have had 0% of the company as the bank would have had no other choice but to publicly auction the asset....
In my experiences, where banks have business assets under management, and ultimately need to sell them to recover debt, they are not in the business of determining or holding them to see how much they can get for them, they simply recover as much as they can as quick as they can via the market, which they assume will give them the fairest price. In the above in instance, the bank were obviously afforded an offer (which no doubt they had some say in also) to dispose of the asset, in a expeditious manner. Again, time value & opportunity costs would have been the main priority here for the bank (per my above comments). Of course the bank want to recover as much as they can for shareholders, but they are not in the business of realisation of asset to repay debts, shareholders take the risk by investing in banks that loans may go bad.... Banks protect shareholders by ensuring funds lent can be serviced, Banks simply move on as quick as they can in majority of instances...
MAE Price at posting:
0.6¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held