On December 5th, 2008, uWink (NASDAQ: UWKI.OB) made an “odd lot” tender offer to purchase all shares of its common stock held by persons owning 99 shares or fewer on the close of business as of December 1, 2008.

The offer was designed to reduce the number of total shareholders of uWink’s stock to under 500, whereby uWink would then deregister their stock from the OTC/Bulletin board and spin off their technology licensing business as a dividend to existing stockholders.

Well, it turns out that uWink was successful in this endeavor and that it will deregister with the Securities and Exchange Commission on or about January 30, 2009.

As I wrote recently, uWink has serious liquidity issues and is taking an unprecedented step to take themselves out of the stock market, and make the company look more attractive for possible investment for the two separate entities that they will become: one a restaurant company, and one a software and licensing company.

As a result of this tender offer’s success and the fact that uWink will essentially no longer be a publicly traded company, there will be a different CEO, and uWink shares are practically worthless, I am removing uWink from my coverage universe and downgrading shares to Sell, although this is only a symbolic gesture.

New to the uWink story?

uWink is an entertainment and hospitality software development company that develops casual, interactive, social games, in addition to licensing the rights to those games and their proprietary touch-screen ordering and gaming interface to restaurants, entertainment venues and the hospitality industry.

uWink also owns and operates three restaurants under the uWink brand name that utilize this technology.

uWink’s CEO is Nolan Bushnell, who also founded Atari Inc. (OTC: ATAR.PK) and Chuck E. Cheese’s, now known as CEC Entertainment (NYSE: CEC).

Want More?

• Start: with my recent post about uWink’s tender offer to go private here.
• OR: Read my last post regarding uWink’s future as a stand alone company here.
• OR: read about uWink’s latest deal to test their terminals at a Chili’s Too Margarita Grill, and possible expansion plans to other Chili’s restaurants here.

So Long uWink, It Was Nice Knowing Ya!

uWink delisting all but ends company’s high profile existence

I wrote extensively when it was announced what uWink’s tender offer meant for shareholders of the company’s stock, and what should be done if you still owned shares of uWink.

You can read that post in its entirety by clicking here. There still is time if you want to sell your uWink shares for a pittance.

In a nutshell, uWink wanted to diminish the number of shareholders so that they could in essence take the company private, delist from the public markets, and then spin off shares of their company into 2 entities: a software licensing company that dealt with their touch screen ordering and gaming terminals, and a stand alone restaurant company that dealth with their 3 restaurant locations.

With uWink’s announcement on Friday January 16th that they succeeded in getting enough people to tender them their shares to make this a reality, the company now plans to stop any and all public filings which are required as a listed company, and then delist their shares on the public markets by January 30th, 2009 and become a “non-reporting” company.

What does “non-reporting” company mean?

Well, it means uWink won’t have to report their earnings, sales, file 10-Q’s, 10-K’s, 8-K’s, or any other requirement for a publicly traded company that is in compliance with the SEC.

For us it means we will have little to no transparency on what’s going on with uWink behind the scenes because they will not be required to tell us as shareholders anything of substance because they are no longer a publicly traded company.

My sinking suspicion is that more than to save costs, uWink is taking this step because they don’t want the intense scrutiny that investors have them under, as well as their inability to raise funds as a public company.

This essentially gets uWink off the hook in terms of having to answer questions about declining sales, what they are doing, and when their pilot projects are going to be coming online in the future, etc.

Private investors will have an easier time because of liquidity constraints in getting shares of uWink or investing in the company than they ever would on the public markets.

Finally, uWink’s stock may be quoted in the Pink Sheets Electronic Quotation System once the shares are deregistered.

uWink stated in their filing that they cannot predict whether or when this will occur or that an active trading market will exist for their common stock after they deregister.

As a result, it may be more difficult for remaining stockholders to sell their shares.

What this does is essentially lock in shareholders now who might want to sell uWink’s stock in the future.

So what does this mean for those that currently own shares of uWink?…

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