Great-West Lifeco Inc., is warning investors in Ireland to be aware of an unsolicited mini-tender offer by Obatan LLC to acquire their common shares of the company at an 18 per cent discount. The common shares do not trade on any recognized stock exchange in Ireland.
The mini-tender, in this case – the third made for this particular company’s shares – is a bid to purchase up to 50,000 shares. “The unsolicited offer represents a discount of approximately 18 per cent to the closing price on the TSX on May 26, 2023, the last trading day before the offer was commenced,” the company states in its June 6 announcement.
“Mini-tender offers such as Obatan’s seek less than five per cent of a class of outstanding shares and so avoid many of the investor protections like disclosure and procedural protections applicable to most bids under Canadian law,” they write. “Securities regulators have expressed serious concerns about mini-tender offers, including the possibility that investors might tender to such offers without understanding the offer price relative to the actual market price of their securities. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has noted that some bidders make these offers at below market prices, hoping they will catch investors off guard.”
The company further points out that Obatan’s offer documents indicate that shareholder tenders are irrevocable. More, shareholders must tender all of their shares – they do not have the option to tender only a portion of their holdings.
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