1 These may be the key words from the update:  "I also think it's worth mentioning that John Ledford is not part of the new company."

2 It'd be interesting to learn the story behind that, but we probably won't ever. I believe that Ledford is in charge at Sentai Filmworks.

3 Probably not.  However, ANN is speculating that Ledford actually is behind the new companies and that the whole thing was done to get away from Sojitz, whom they seem to think still had the 20% stake. I don't buy it, but it's interesting to note that they also surmise that it was management differences that drove ADV and Sojitz  apart.

4 Tokyopop just lost all their Kodansha manga, too.  Things are tough all over.

5 That press release spends way too much time talking about the senior secured creditor to make this anything but an asset shell game.

Possible scenario: ADV's on the brink of liquidation, can't make its bills, yadda yadda. The majority of ADV's "value", at this point, is in the already-existing licensing agreements it has - this is basically permission to sell existing physical stock and press more, and the only way the company has to get funds. The whole company is obviously worth less than what's owed to all outstanding creditors, but possibly worth more than the senior creditor would get.

Under this breakdown, the senior creditor still has an interest in the remaining licenses, but has no apparent interest (legal interest, I mean) in the physical assets of ADV - the production hardware and warehouse, etc. Why would they do that, given that said hardware's at least worth somethin' on the open market? My gut feeling is that they got an ultimatum. "We're having trouble making all our payments. If we actually go bankrupt, by the time the court unwinds us, the licensing agreements will be kaput due to non-payment and you'll get nothing but the few physical assets. But if you take this deal, and continue to extend us credit so that we can continue operations, you'll recover more from the share of the intellectual property we'll give you (because we're about to lose it anyway) than you would from selling our desks and the pinball table."

Senior creditor gets the revenue stream from the existing licenses. Ledford et al break up the rest of ADV and let the shell die. Other creditors force the shell into bankruptcy. Senior creditor says "our debt is senior; the total value upon liquidation would have been less than our debt, so nobody else was ever getting paid anyway. We've been offered a settlement we're happy with." Bankruptcy court says "well, them's the breaks" to everyone else and approves the deal. Result: all the other creditors have been discharged, and Ledford now has a production unit, a sales/warehouse unit, and a licensing unit with Clannad and a couple other new titles, all free of debt or obligation.

Not necessarily what happened, just my read from the language; that PR was issued with an eye towards bankruptcy law, not announcing the exciting new creation of several anime-related businesses. But I'll say this - I'm sure glad I'm not working there now.

6 I think you may have hit it on the head Avatar.