No, that's not right in this case. There is an advantage in...

No, that's not right in this case. There is an advantage in being a big shareholder, ie the voting power. You can vote through a deal that destroys all the existing equity, including your own. Eg, you could push through a transfer of the assets to a new entity. So if you can do a deal with the debt holders, you can expunge the debt and have a chunk of the new owner of the assets.

It could be done in this case because FW has some big shareholders he could deal with.