ON OUR BLOGS: CPBJ EXTRA [Central Penn Business Journal (PA)]

Amy Gulli is managing editor of the Business Journal. Have a tip or question for her? Email Amy at amy@centralpenn business.com. Follow her on Twitter, @amygulli.

Donegal insurance Group has called Gregory Shepard's tender offer "illusory" since the beginning, and its pointed out several flaws in his plan to buy more than 960,000 shares of its Class ? stock.

But one of the things Donegal has never overtly questioned is Shepard's ability to actually cough up the $29 million in cash if everything goes his way. Yet Shepard filed an amendment Thursday to his initial tender offer, detailing his net worth and how he would come up with the money.

Want to guess how he'd do it? By selling stock in other companies, of course.

According to his filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Shepard owns 1 million shares of "a New York Stock Exchange-listed publicly traded company." As of June 12, the average 10-day trading volume for that stock is more than 1.5 million shares, Shepard says, citing Yahoo Finance.

Shepard can trade these shares at any time, the filing says, thereby giving him the cash he'd need.

Shepard then sets his net worth at $100 million to $120 million and says $80 million to $88 million is liquid. The rest is illiquid assets, which "consist primarily of farmland and residences," the filing states.

All of this is interesting. A welcome glimpse into the enigmatic world of Gregory Shepard. But it doesn't seem to have much to do with Donegal's arguments that his offer isn't viable.

In a May 29 letter to shareholders, the company highlighted (wo major arguments:

* Shepard's offer requires regulatory approvals from insurance regulators in six states, including Pennsylvania. And Shepard hasn't begun to apply for those approvals.

* The tender offer also must be approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Based on the length of a review period required after Shepard filed his requisite application (he got that one filed April 29), Donegal said it doesn't believe Shepard can receive approval before the new July 31 expi- ration date of his offer.

And there's this major snag: Unless some of Donegal's officers and directors tender their Class ? shares to Shepard, he can't buy enough to achieve the 962,636 he's seeking. And "the officers and directors of DGI have stated their intentions not to tender their Class ? Shares to Shepard," the letter to shareholders states.

,4s Tim Stuhldreher pointed out a few weeks ago, Shepard and his offer are quite a puzzler.

-June 14

I'll admit it: I was skeptical, and it seems I'm being proven wrong - so far.

Early this year, staff reporter Brent Burkey blogged about Williamsport's failed attempt to keep afloat a minor league hockey team that played outside in the winter. Kudos to Williamsport for trying to think of a new way to generate income, but I agree with Brent: The whole idea fell into the category of the best-laid plans of mice and men.

That plan has gone so awry, in fact, that Williamsport is now suing to recover nearly $55,000 it claims it is owed from the now- defunct Williamsport Outlaws. I imagine the legal fees of trying to recover the money will far outstrip that amount.

All of which brings to me to my point: I was expecting this scenario to play out in a slightly different version when the American Indoor Football league announced that it was adding a team at the York City Ice Arena.

The ice arena's woes are nearly legend- ary in York County. In summary, if you're not familiar with the tale: The company that ran the facility couldn't ever get it to run in the black, so the City of York took it over - including its bills. And despite multiple ploys and efforts and financial rearranging, the ice arena has continued to be a money drain.

My skepticism about York's indoor football team was further fueled when details about the team were initially scarce. Hardly anyone who's normally in the know about such things had heard of the deal, and we couldn't get the AIF to confirm anything. And let's be honest here: How many people do you know who are passionate about, and regularly attend, minor league football games? I saw the chances of this team having a significant financial impact as minimal.

But the team - dubbed the York Capitals during some stage I must have missed - has been playing there and, in fact, doing quite well in the league. The Capitals just played the Harrisburg Stampede - which, in case you missed it, is now fully owned by New Orleans Saints wide receiver and Harrisburg- area native Marques Colston - in the AIF semi-finals June 1....

-June 10

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