I should correct my earlier message referencing the voting...

I should correct my earlier message referencing the voting provisions for the demerger meeting and the acquisition meeting. In effect, pretty well everyone will be able to vote, including the majors.

Demerger meeting

All shareholders may vote. From the release, the identified shareholders who intend voting in support hold 28.7%. Blackrock, which took a 5% stake last December, could also vote in favour, making it 33.7% at least from the main players, plus smaller holdings in the AMA business.

Acquisition meeting

ASIC's Regulatory Guidance Note 60 says at 60.94 that the Corps Act does not prohibit interested parties who hold target shares from voting in relation to an acquisition. However, it is expected that interested parties should disclose their interests and should not vote to approve an acquisition. Whether or not you view Hopkins as an interested party (he will be the CEO of the proposed new private equity panel business and holds 9.5% of AMA shares), presumably all 28.7% will vote in favour of the Blackstone acquisition as there is nothing to prohibit this at law. Blackrock, which took a 5% stake last December, could also vote in favour.

In each case, they need to get 75% of voting shares by capital. I don't know what percentage of shareholders will bother to vote. If, for example, only half of shareholders bother voting, then the 33.7% of shares held by the main players becomes 67.4% of the total vote. It would not be unreasonable to think that they would get another 8% of votes by capital so they would probably meet the 75% hurdle.

On the headcount rule, if only half the 2547 shareholders are bothered to vote, will half of them approve the deals? 1022 shareholders are in the holding range of 10,001 to 100,000 shares, typical small investors. It could come down to whether most of them see this as a deal which is mostly beneficial to the big players or whether they see benefits for themselves. The Independent Expert will consider this, among other things.