Acquiring more Share Plc shares or not?

[garindan]

Have you not read/understood the Recommended Offer document? It says quite clearly in there:

Fractions of entitlements to New ii Shares will be rounded down to the nearest whole number of New ii Shares and Share plc Shareholders will receive cash in respect of fractional entitlements to New ii Shares on the basis of the Agreed New ii Shares Valuation, rounded down to the nearest penny, provided that the total amount of cash required to satisfy the cash entitlement of the Offer Consideration under the Offer (including the Share plc Share Schemes Offer Consideration) and such fractional entitlements does not exceed £16.2 million.

You voted For/Against (or abstained) this as part of the conditions at the time of agreeing the takeover...

I have, yes, but it seems you have not read page 58 of the scheme where it mentions exactly what I have said.

[Boro Boy]

Have you not read/understood the Recommended Offer document? It says quite clearly in there:

Fractions of entitlements to New ii Shares will be rounded down to the nearest whole number of New ii Shares and Share plc Shareholders will receive cash in respect of fractional entitlements to New ii Shares on the basis of the Agreed New ii Shares Valuation, rounded down to the nearest penny, provided that the total amount of cash required to satisfy the cash entitlement of the Offer Consideration under the Offer (including the Share plc Share Schemes Offer Consideration) and such fractional entitlements does not exceed £16.2 million.

You voted For/Against (or abstained) this as part of the conditions at the time of agreeing the takeover...

I have, yes, but it seems you have not read page 58 of the scheme where it mentions exactly what I have said.

I have and it changes nothing. If you voted for the deal you be aware you voted for ii to have discretion on how it handles the cash distribution (or otherwise) for fractional distribution after the exhaustion of the £16.2million fund set aside for this issue...

[garindan]

I have and it changes nothing. If you voted for the deal you be aware you voted for ii to have discretion on how it handles the cash distribution (or otherwise) for fractional distribution after the exhaustion of the £16.2million fund set aside for this issue...

I thought you said:

ii have indicated that once the pot allocated for cash payments of fractional holdings has run out it will not be increased

...and then said to me this was in the offer document and I can't have read it. It seems it was not in the offer document at all and in fact what you wrote was misleading and incorrect.

[Boro Boy]

I have and it changes nothing. If you voted for the deal you be aware you voted for ii to have discretion on how it handles the cash distribution (or otherwise) for fractional distribution after the exhaustion of the £16.2million fund set aside for this issue...

I thought you said:

ii have indicated that once the pot allocated for cash payments of fractional holdings has run out it will not be increased

...and then said to me this was in the offer document and I can't have read it. It seems it was not in the offer document at all and in fact what you wrote was misleading and incorrect.

It seemed pretty clear to me. "...and such fractional entitlements does not exceed £16.2 million."

Why should ii make any more money available over and above the £16.2million when they have already indicated it is at their discretion what happens next? They are more likely to play about with paper and mess about with the share allocation to even it all out.

[BeautifulSunshine]

In my humble opinion, the long-term advantage would be to:

Purchase additional shares to take us to the threshold required to maintain our discount.

...so be in a position to acquire 1 New ii Share?

We current have a 500 share holding and would need 1197 shares holding to qualify for the part cash, part shareholding offer.

We are short of Share PLC shares to qualify for the part cash, part shareholding offer, the mathematics is:

Shares Required for Part Cash, Part Shareholding Offer = 1197
Our Current Holding = 500
Shares Required for Part Cash, Part Shareholding Offer - Our Current Holding = Additional Shares We Would Need To Buy To Qualify for the Part Cash, Part Shareholding Offer*
1197 - 500 = 697 Share PLC Shares

*By close of business 30 June 2020.

Any further questions, queries or feedback please do NOT hesitate to put forward.

[garindan]

Personally I'd rather not continue holding shares in II after this is all done. We bought these shares at 40p in order to get discounted dealing, but the price then tanked to about 25p - losses outweighing any gains from trading discounts. We are perhaps rather fortunate that a suitor has come to our rescue

"purchase additional shares to take us just below the threshold to look for cash profit"

If there is a genuine opportunity to make a risk-free profit, then fair enough. I am a little sceptical though; presumably all the Share.com members who did the same as us (got a small amount of shares to get a trading discount) will be in the same position. Is there a link to a discussion of this on an investor website which would confirm the opportunity?

[richard@imutual]

I'm also not sure exactly how much cash we have available at the moment, but it should be nearing the amount needed to action the second and third options. Maybe Rich can do the valuation soon and we'll know where we stand.

So the last valuation on 16 May reported £133.65 available to invest, and since then we have cashed in our Warehouse REIT holding for £1035.33

[Boro Boy]

I'm also not sure exactly how much cash we have available at the moment, but it should be nearing the amount needed to action the second and third options. Maybe Rich can do the valuation soon and we'll know where we stand.

So the last valuation on 16 May reported £133.65 available to invest, and since then we have cashed in our Warehouse REIT holding for £1035.33

...and purchased Braemar Shipping Services bought 788 at £1.27 on 5 Jun 2020...!?!

[Boro Boy]

I'm also not sure exactly how much cash we have available at the moment, but it should be nearing the amount needed to action the second and third options. Maybe Rich can do the valuation soon and we'll know where we stand.

So the last valuation on 16 May reported £133.65 available to invest, and since then we have cashed in our Warehouse REIT holding for £1035.33

(who keeps the records around here?)

...and purchased Braemar Shipping Services bought 788 at £1.27 on 5 Jun 2020...!?!

[garindan]

It seemed pretty clear to me. "...and such fractional entitlements does not exceed £16.2 million."

Why should ii make any more money available over and above the £16.2million when they have already indicated it is at their discretion what happens next? They are more likely to play about with paper and mess about with the share allocation to even it all out.

To you perhaps but you are ignoring the fact they would like all the share.com membership to continue to use the brand or the ii service that will presumably replace share.com at some point in time. It's not black and white. Why would they leave the option in the documentation to have discretion to make either style of change if they had no intention to do it or not providing them with actionable resolutions? To humour share.com shareholders? Perhaps but most probably not - they need to be able to see exactly what the situation is at the end of trading and this gives them the options to handle it.

It is a double edged sword. If there is only a small difference in the cash required to "balance the books" I would be surprised if they didn't just find the cash and be done with it. It's a simple exercise that does not cause them any side effects apart from the cash expenditure. If they have a bigger difference they will have to look at the latter option of fudging the figures for shares and cash. However, this risks the bad side effect of potentially pissing off those due shares and money by devaluing their stakes. That's not good promotional activity. Sometimes spending is the best way out of things.

There will be shareholders whom have sold their entire holdings in recent weeks since the takeover agreement was announced. The prospect of having cash tied up in shares within a company that is not listed isn't a great one for many investors. That's most likely why there hasn't been a rush to purchase shares at the current price. Additionally, many small shareholders may well have sold out in recent weeks, with their quotas being bought by larger shareholders where less cash will be needed to complete the takeover.

There are also various other things that could be happening behind the scenes. Like I said - things are never black and white.