In most high-profile bankruptcies, there aren't enough assets to even finish paying creditors, yet alone creditors. However, this is a voluntary Bankruptcy, so there might actually be assets left over to pay out to shareholders.
If the value of assets after paying off debtors is > $8/share, then that’s the easiest arbitrage opportunity considering it’s currently trading at $1.80.
Just buy the whole thing for $3/share (an irrefutable premium of 67%), shut down operations entirely, pay off the creditors, and pocket the net assets of > $8/share and more than double your money almost instantly.
If the claim is the CEO ran it into the ground then the board messed up even worse by not replacing the CEO.
So I’m doubting that is what is really happening here?
There isn’t one single value, value derived ( let alone perceived) is subjective
In this case, The stock is worth more(or less) to the 49% shareholder than others who are may value the founder holding defacto controlling stake negatively, thus discount the stock less than its book value .
This is also why sometimes same class of shares held by different people get priced (i.e. valued) differently in a single deal. Recently the paramount one is a good example .
Another famous example Yahoo was valued negatively for a long time before its sale to Verizon, I.e. its market cap was less than the value of its alibaba holdings .
One off events like county cases , drug trials likelyhood of a merger approval from regulators are hard to price accurately and can skew.
Can the board replace the CEO if the CEO has 49% of voting rights?