This is the key issue. They are for all intents and purposes...

This is the key issue. They are for all intents and purposes working for Latitude now, not Humm, so the better the deal is for Humm shareholders the worse it is for them in their future roles.

Looking at it from this angle the sudden 180 degree turn on the company's value and using the lack of other bidders to refuse to try to negotiate a more reasonable price for the sale all make much more sense.

Selling the consumer side to Latitude at the right price is all well and good and there is nothing stopping them negotiating directly with Latitude for a higher price if they really wanted to, Latitude need this to go through just as much as we do, but I doubt there is the will to negotiate too hard against their future selves.

It seems like they have essentially trashed Humm in an attempt to force us to be a distressed seller so we are left with no good options. Either accept the poor offer and take the loss, no matter how well LFS does out of the synergies the tiny portion of it we get for our Humm shares means we miss out on most of it anyway or vote no and hope for a better counter offer or ride out the (hopefully) short/medium term damage done to the company by this disaster.

Of the two bad choices, to me voting no seems like the least-worst option, I think the chance of a better offer is reasonable and if not there is still potential long term gain in the company if you can ride out the short term. Accepting the offer locks in the harm with no prospect of improvement.

The only actual gain in this for me as a Humm shareholder is a useful list of executives and board members to add to my black list of people to avoid when evaluating companies for future investments.