Here's the timeline: 10:00 Going into the day's trading, there are sell orders all the way up from 0.88 to 1.00+ sitting in the queue. 10:10 Golden announce takeover. 10:20 shares come out of price-sensitive announcement suspension. 10:20 (if not earlier) Golden stand in the market for 50m shares at $1. 10:20 Golden have nearly all their 50m shares.
How did they get them so fast? Well, all the people who had sell orders waiting to be filled and weren't watching their screens like hawks had their shares taken off them by Golden.
16:40 Board recommend no action.
Well excuse me, but all those shareholders who took no action between 10:10 and 10:20 and who would have appreciated a bit more notice of the takeover so that they could consider it, have lost their shares. They never got the chance to "participate in any subsequent increase in offer price".
This is so obscenely unacceptable that I really do think that everyone on HC, whether they are a SMR shareholder or not, should complain urgently and vociferously to ASIC and anyone else they can think of, that it is absolutely unacceptable for a takeover to go through with only 10 minutes notice to shareholders, and a complete trading day before the board were able to get any advice to shareholders.
I was surprised this morning that an on-market takeover was legal. On reflection, I am now even more surprised. The regulator has to be pressured somehow into banning it as of now.
I wonder whether there is any chance of a class action clawing the shares back from Golden? It would be interesting to know if there is a legal case of any sort. There is certainly a moral case.
SMR Price at posting:
99.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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