“Stalking Horse” Anybody heard the term?

A couple times lately the term “stalking horse” has been used in conversations I’ve been party to concerning the Genmar bankruptcy filing.

Can anyone here enlighten me as to what it means, and how that could tie into the Genmar situation?

wikipedia:

A stalking horse offer (also known as a stalking horse agreement) refers to an attempt by a debtor to maximize the value of its assets as part of (or before) a bankruptcy court-approved auction process.

Procedure
While entering a stalking horse offer, the debtor can offer bidding protections such as breakup fees to its best bidder before the auction. These incentives enhance the value of the offering for the bidder which might lead to a better price offer before the auction begins. This higher offer is now the starting offer for the auction and may result in benefiting the debtor and its estate.

Examples
On 4 August 2008, Steve and Barry’s LLC, a retailer of casual apparel, filed a stalking horse agreement with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Their partner in this asset purchase agreement was BH S&B Holding LLC, a subsidiary of Bay Harbor Management.[1]

On 27 July 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson had won a stalking horse bid to acquire Nortel Networks Corp’s CDMA division, for $1.13 billion. [2]

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-J.

Its a Christmas gift term. How they get a horse to fit in a stocking is anyone’s guess..

I thought it was Mister Ed with a lisp ???

big G

I think it comes close to the term trial balloon. Testing the water to see how what ever you want to do is going to be received. “I think I’ll try pool 4 instead of taking out the garbage”.

I have one that follows us around the pasture when we are fencing… and drinks the soda off the fence posts..

I got this explaination from a different site. This fits the conversation exactly.