I read the proxy last night for another company (AATK) that I have a few shares in.  They are going through a merger with a private company.  The private company is larger and the shareholders of the public company will represent 20% of the combined entity.  The public company created a wholly owned subsidiary which will be the entity that the private company merges into and then a reverse stock split will take place and the newly merged company will be nasdaq qualified, and then its off to the races.  The heretofore public company has been having difficulty growing and attracting new investors, this merger gives them additional market presence, better access, and credibility etc…

As I read the materials I was drawing many comparisons between that scenario and what could potentially happen here with Patriot; there are many similarities.  The transaction is not that complicated and could easily vault a newly-combined entity into the nasdaq or elsewhere with tremendous momentum.  Coming to mind was TPL or Intellasys into PTSC – perhaps as equals, perhaps not, that would depend on the enterprise values etc… (someone on RB mentioned it today as well).  I would not discount this type of scenario playing out with someone, someday.  I will be watching closely to see how successful the AATK merger is.  I know the private entity has a substantial backlog coming into ’07 – could be interesting.  A similar event at PTSC would also be VERY interesting.