I agree with some of what you say on this too.  At this point in the game (with 20-20 hindsight), perhaps the best thing would indeed have been to just sit on the cash (no divys) and collect interest. Heck, the interest it could have earned would have created an ongoing reliable revenue stream. The divy money was a total of around $30M (not $50M).

I obviously still believe that it would NOT have been a good idea to introduce more risk.  You seem to suggest that the risk factor would have been offset by an aggressive move to buy out another business or whatever in that it would have been a good display of management's confidence.  But that same argument applies to the divys - we can just give out the money because we expect so much more to come.

IMO introduction of more risk would have been perceived by the market as exactly what it would have been - more risk on top of the risk we already endure.  And if that investment were slow to mature, sucking up money rather than producing any, we'd actually be in a much worse position IMO.

We are in total agreement re: the divys.  The weirdest thing about doing the divy thing is that it removes a lot of incentive from S&L to convert warrants.  And the fact that S&L continues to sell to convert (as far as we KNOW) furthers my argument that S&L is indeed our friend. Granted, their selling to convert does hedge their bet on the Markman.

Well, here's to a strong Markman outcome, soon! 

SGE