Gengulphus wrote:EthicsGradient wrote:AJ Bell (ie YouInvest) have given me a Corporate Action to vote on for this, which appears to be to accept the "Oppidum Bidco", ie Fortress, offer. The half-year results from 9th Sept say the board now recommends the CD&R offer; on 8th Sept, they were still talking about setting up an auction. Why am I being asked to vote on the Fortress offer? And has the auction now been trashed?
I suggest you ask AJ Bell why they're asking you to vote on the Fortress offer - they're the only people who know the answer to that question! And as to whether the auction has been "trashed", that would be a major enough development that it would have to be announced in an RNS, and I haven't spotted any such RNS in a look at recent RNSes.
Gengulphus
The half year results, dated 9th Sept, linked to by idpickering just above, start
"The Board has received offers for the company from CD&R and Fortress and is recommending CD&R's offer of 285p per share. Shareholders will be asked to approve this offer at a Court Meeting and General Meeting to be held in or around w/c 18 Oct"
and say nothing about an auction. Dated 8th Sept, we have this:
On 19 August 2021, the boards of directors of Morrisons and Market Bidco Limited ("Market Bidco") announced that they had agreed the terms of a recommended all cash offer at an offer value of 285 pence for each Morrisons Share (the "CD&R Offer") for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Morrisons.
Competitive situation
On the basis that neither Fortress Bidco nor Market Bidco have declared their offers final, such that either offer may be further increased or otherwise revised, a competitive situation continues to exist.
The Board of Morrisons has engaged with the Panel Executive together with Market Bidco and Fortress Bidco in order to begin discussions around an orderly framework for the resolution of this competitive situation (the "Auction Procedure").
In order to provide sufficient time for the resolution of this competitive situation, including by way of any Auction Procedure, the Board of Morrisons now expects that a scheme document, containing further information about the CD&R Offer and notices of the court meeting and the general meeting to approve the CD&R Offer (the "CD&R Meetings"), together with the associated forms of proxy, will be posted to Morrisons shareholders on or around 25 September 2021. For the purposes of paragraph 3(a) of Appendix 7 of the Takeover Code, the Panel Executive has consented to this arrangement.
The CD&R Meetings will be convened for a date in or around the week commencing 18 October 2021. The meetings to approve the Fortress Offer (the "Fortress Meetings") will be adjourned until the same date.
Any Auction Procedure will take place prior to these shareholder meetings, on a date that will be announced by the Panel Executive in due course.
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/new ... s/15126542
and those 2 seem to be the latest official documents issued by Morrisons. News reports since the 9th have talked as if an auction is still expected, but they're not official. If an auction is still possible, it seems misleading for the half year report to mention the recommended CD&R offer, with price, but not that an auction may still happen.
As far as the AJ Bell thing goes, yes, I'll ask them what they're wittering on about, but I thought someone here might be able to explain. Replies here are always more timely than from the people we pay ...