A judge has dashed the hopes of a group of investors in Ultra Petroleum Inc., a bankrupt natural gas company, who had sought to collect a $300 million windfall because a clerk entered a court order on the wrong date, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur approved on Feb. 13 the disclosures for Ultra's plan to emerge from chapter 11, although his order was not put on the docket until the morning of Feb. 14. Some holders of Ultra's notes then argued that the delay changed the plan's economics in their favor, until Judge Isgur ruled against them on Tuesday. Judge Isgur said that all the parties expected his order to be entered on the court's docket the same day he approved it, not the next morning. The mix-up prompted some holders of Ultra's notes to file court papers on Monday arguing that the day difference would mean the company's rights offering should be delayed to Wednesday from Tuesday, as originally planned. The delayed rights offering in turn would affect the formula for natural gas prices used to establish Ultra's value in its chapter 11 plan, reducing it to $5.5 billion from $6 billion. That in turn would impact how noteholders would split the equity in the reorganized company with its shareholders. At the lower valuation the noteholders estimated they would get an additional $303 million, according to court filings.
