Hacker News Reader

> Would the SEC have even allowed them to issue shares?

From the article:

“Other companies in the midst of the Reddit frenzy whose financial quarters finished at the end of December and had already updated investors on their latest financial performance, were able to sell stock when their shares rallied at the end of January.”

Hertz was a bankrupt company. Their shares were legally worthless. And they didn’t have a shelf offering already authorised. Different facts and circumstances.

AMC did exactly that, they sold a bunch of new shares at an inflated price

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the new AMC shares came from Silverlake exercising its convertibles, not AMC itself. Of course it still benefited AMC by reducing its debt load.

It was both, AMC completed an at the market offering during the pump and convertible bond holders also converted to stock

You are correct. Thanks for pointing that out.

Matt Levine at Bloomberg has been covering this issue extensively. His newsletter is a must-read.