XIP (ASX) News: XIP IPH Ltd Requests Xenith Board Defer Date Of Scheme Meeting To Vote On QANTM Merger

Originally posted by adrianl456: ↑

I'll guess we will see over the next couple of weeks. ACCC announcement due tomorrow which could shatter the ambitions for all the players! (Highly unlikely).

You're right, everyone has a price, just that some will be higher than others. Whether IPH get enough support, say anything above 60%, to proceed with their Rupert Murdoch like ambitions, we will know at the time of the first vote. Don't forget, IPH can't compulsory acquire until they hit 90%, even though they can start passing resolutions from 50%

If they get enough to make it uncomfortable for the hold-outs then we may seem some vendor principals accept the money and walk, setting up elsewhere. "Shelston, Hack, Watermark and Glasshouse" has a nice ring too it!

The interesting thing that would come about though, if they (IPH) don't garner much support at the first vote. They know they have their own 20%, but surely he (Blattman) would want to see quite a few more shares vote against the merge. If I was him, anything less that 40% against would make things difficult for them going forward.

Expand

As expected, the ACCC on 21 March has approved the QIP-XIP merger. This would provide very good confidence with the IPH-XIP deal unlikely to be challenged either when looking at the ACCC's rationale for QIP-XIP:

... the ACCC considered that firms within a merged QANTM and Xenith do not have the incentive to compete with each other. The ACCC concluded that a merged QANTM and Xenith is likely to continue to face competition from a number of alternative large and medium suppliers.

Now that any doubt regarding ACCC is out of the way (I never believed there would be a problem), its simply voting numbers at the next XIP meeting. QIP will lose for reasons I've stated before. IPH may get its numbers quickly from their current 19.9% to 57.7% if the institutions sell. And why wouldn't they, given IPH's financial track record. Any ex-vendor hold out as you've said will start to feel pressure.

The Griffith Hack ex-vendors as a bloc are the largest group of all ex-vendors holding 24.39%. You only have to look at the 2 March 2017 ASX announcement at Annexure A,and figure out which of the 20 Griffith Hack ex-vendors are no longer working and would less reason to vote against the IPH deal. The same process can be repeated for both the 11 Shelston and 9 Watermark ex-vendors also. Then the numbers start to look appealing for IPH. Each ex-vendor has about 350K to 1.1 million XIP shares.

Still a good arb from $1.80 here until the $2 IPH takeover price.