“Not that my vote would move the needle, but big investors of Allkem should be more interested what happens to their own capital than retail investors”.
Don’t be so sure of this. This proposed “merger” is via a Scheme Of Arrangement (SOA) and to proceed 2 conditions MUST be met by THOSE WHO VOTE at any scheme meeting.
1. Over 75% of shares must be in favour. (1 share = 1 vote)
2. Over 50% of SHAREHOLDERS must be in favour. ( 1 HIN = 1 vote).
Ok , at many SOA meetings, it is often the case that few (retail) shareholders choose to vote, but if retail retail shareholders, esp smaller ones, feel they are getting a ‘dudded deal’ and can be encouraged to vote via an activism campaign, they can very easily decide the result even though they may together only control a small %age of the shares.
It is not necessarily the ‘big end of town’ and the ‘suits in the room’ who rule the roost.
I saw evidence of that recently with the UMG SOA meeting..... only about 1000 holders voted, and although the scheme easily passed, it would not have needed many retail shareholders with small holdings to say No to derail it. I think UMG may have been ‘scared’ about which way they vote may go, as we (very small holder) received tel calls on UMG behalf spruiking for ‘yes’ vote ..
And with the recent activities in LTR with the ALB proposal, there was evidence that with an activism campaign directed to small retail shareholders, they could well have decided the outcome, not the ‘big end of town’ & bod related interests who controlled nearly 90% of shares.
Here is the AKE shareholding distribution as published in last Annual Report
Notice that there are about 45k ‘tiny - small’ retail holders, who, if only a 5-20% actually voted, would out vote the ‘big end of town’ on a shareholder count basis.
If it was a ‘classical takeover’ it would be different, but this is a SOA deal.
