For this reason I’ve never heard of a stock which is selling at less than assets minus debts for very long. It’s an easy hostile takeover + fire sale situation.

So I’m doubting that is what is really happening here?

It does happen for many reasons and not uncommon, uncertainty and risk is typically why.

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.

FWIW, it's very common for stocks listed in the Hong Kong stock exchange to have its share price below assets minus debts..

Weird - any idea why?

People think the property market in Hong Kong and China is going to collapse. And much of the asset price can be attributed to real estate.

> If the claim is the CEO ran it into the ground then the board messed up even worse by not replacing the CEO.

Can the board replace the CEO if the CEO has 49% of voting rights?

The answer is yes and no. Yes the board can replace the CEO, but then the 49% owner can almost certainly replace the board

The answer is no. She pushed out the first board, but the second hand-picked board still wasn't having it with these lowball offers. This is a shitshow