My personal opinion is vote no on both.
For disclosure, my average price is around $1.50 - it was $2.10 until I doubled down in mid March. I have held since 2008 and accumulated a number of times, have never sold a VRL share.
There will be retail holders in the green if they bought, or topped up in March. Others will be in the green if they've held for many years - in both cases, not by an awful lot. I agree that most holders will be in the red at low $2's. A 3, 5 or 10 year chart will prove that beyond any doubt.
You also have to make an "election", a choice to accept part or all of your value as shares in the new entity, keeping in mind it won't be listed on the ASX. If you felt one of the schemes was going to be voted in AND you felt there is genuine upside in the ongoing business, then you might considering "staying in". I'm certainly not recommending that, but it's something I'll consider. Bit of a conundrum as I firmly believe the business is worth much more, but I'm equally loathed to support the charlatans who are so happily selling us up the river.
For what it's worth, my assessment is that scheme A will likely fail - I just can't see 75% of non-VRC holders ("the rest of us") agreeing this is a good deal. This unfortunately means the VRC holders will then get to vote on scheme B. Considering they hold 40% and only need 75% of the vote, this means nearly 60% of non-VRC holders would need to vote scheme B down for it to fail.
If both schemes are voted down, VRL continues trading on the ASX. The problem there is the controlling shareholders are going to be p*ssed off and we'll be relying on them to re-arrange debt and equity levels and to get on with driving the company forward. Best case would be an alternative proposal comes along.
The Grant Samuel report states that small retail holders (those with 10,000 shares of less) make up 92% of shareholders. This is entirely irrelevant though, because those holders make up just 6% of shares (votes) in VRL.
81% of VRL shares are owned by the Top 20 holders - it's basically 41% owned by VRC / it's principals and the VRL senior execs. The remaining 40% (from the Top 20) is "institutional nominee or custodian companies" - that includes Mittleman (10% of all shares) and various other banks and LIC's. The vote really comes down to them. To be honest, we really don't have much of a voice here.
Like a few other people on here I presume, I'm in the "other 13%" - those with above 10,000 shares (the last 6% of shares), but short of the Top 20 (the first 81% shares).
Just 74 holders control close to 90% of the shares. Take out the VRC and their personal / super fund holdings and other directors and executives holdings and his means that only around 50 holders will be making the decision here.
As I've posted before, Mittleman and (he says) a number of other substantial holders are dead against the takeover at this price and I believe these substantial holders are continuing to increase their positions (votes).
I'd love to know what Vijay Sethu will be doing with his 10 million votes.
Hope this helps. Obviously not to be taken as advice, but I hope it's informative.
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