[TomR]

I am not certain of Party's future. The primary shareholders, from my understanding, have over $1B in stock, I doubt they are going to give up that value for an amount significantly below that amount that would be required to pay out player cashouts this week, if at all possible. But I am not sure that they have the assets outside of the stock to fund it and I don't know what the chances are that they can find funding outside, if necessary. Total cashouts this week will not be all of the player balances after all.

You also have to consider the more than three months that have passed since the 6/30 F/S. In the quarter ending 6/30/06 they earned $170M, so an amount similar to that could be assumed to be added to their assets at this time. But there was also a mention in the Barron's article of a $130M cash acquisition (which I know nothing about) made during the quarter that would almost eat up that income.

But bottom line, I wouldn't have an amount in Party that would hurt me financially if things go wrong. Partly because I don't have too much trust in those major investors from what I have heard about their backgrounds and partly because I don't have the information that lenders would have in deciding to extend credit that they may need.