It has been a rough year for OCZ as they tried to overcome the problems that they inherited from once CEO Ryan Petersen.  The news first broke in February when Wells Fargo announced that they would have OCZ delisted from the stock exchange as they had not submitted an acceptable profit statement since Q1 of 2012.  That would have had a drastic effect on the ability of OCZ to do business and would have triggered a shareholder revolt.   The new company head, Ralph Schmitt, managed to stave off the Feb 28th deadline with the help of Crowe Horwath LLP's auditors and received an extension on the SEC deadline.  As long as OCZ could produce an accurate accounting of 2012 and Q1 of 2013 by April 8th they would not be delisted.  Unfortunately the corrected bookkeeping revealed a serious problem with OCZ's sales model.  The higher their raw revenues climbed during 2013 the more their net loss increased, with sales incentives, poor chip supplies and other costs contributed to a seemingly unsustainable business model.

Today the sad announcement of the coming demise of OCZ became official, at 9AM EST trading of OCZ stock was suspended as they announced their impending bankruptcy.  The trading resumed just a short time ago, at 2:30PM and as you can see the news is bleak for shareholders.

The stock price declined by 67% since the beginning of the year until this announcement and is currently plummeting even more.  According to Barrons and other sources, Toshiba has made an offer to purchase OCZ's assets, the "“material terms have been agreed to,” though there are a number of conditions that have to be satisfied, such as retention of employees."  Until this deal is finalized we will not know the fate of OCZ and their product lines or warranty support and it could be quite some time before the specifics are agreed upon and announced to consumers.  It is a sad day for enthusiasts who have enjoyed the great performance and low prices that OCZ's SSDs lines offered.

 

UPDATE : “With the recent news OCZ wants to reassure all our valued customers that the Company is honoring all product warranties. If any customers require support they are encouraged to contact our customer support and forum support teams who will be more than happy to assist.”