Some not especially great news for the debt owners of Navios Maritime Holdings (NM).Anyway, the news is that Navios wants to buy out the people who own preferred stock in the company. This illustrates one of the less-understood concepts out there with regards to "Preferred" shares. These aren't bonds, and don't carry the same kind of guarantees bonds do. They're also not stocks, so they don't carry voting rights. Good for NM corporate, extremely bad for people who didn't buy common. They are offering $5.85/share for series G and $5.75/share for series H. Tickers vary by broker, try (NM-PG) and (NM-PH). These preferred shares originally sold at par value of $25 each. The way preferred shares work is that if a company issues debt this way, and is forced to cut dividends on their common stock, and they also cut dividends to the preferred shares, then they have to pay back all of those dividends on the preferred before they can go back to having dividends on the common.The belief that people had was that at some point, all of the dividends would be paid back and everyone made whole. But there was a clause in the contract of those preferred shares where if an offer was accepted by more than 2/3rds of the preferred holders, Navios could cancel out all those dividends. People bought preferred believing they were getting a huge discount against that stream of cumulative dividend income. Great news for Navios Holdings common shareholders. Not so great for preferred.In the longer run, this is very good news for Navios Holdings. It means that they will have an easier time managing their debt burden. The company has received financing from an undisclosed bank against the assets they hold with Navios Acquisitions (NNA). This has been one of the things I've been expecting them to try to accomplish. At some point, I plan to do a full breakdown of the debt obligations of the holdings company, and the kinds of things they can do to manage that. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, don't go buying up preferred shares in Navios Maritime Partners (NMM) or Navios Midstream (NAP). You might find yourself in a similar situation.