Hoov said:
"During the course of an offer, the offeror (Noront in this instance) is prevented in law from taking up any shares or buying in the market except in accordance with the offer. There is an exception for market purchases up to 5% of outstanding shares, but Noront has not given notice that they intended to exercise that right, so it too would be illegal. Noront will not own any FWR shares until no sooner than midnight tonight."
This is true. But Noront is more than just the guys that sit behind the desk. It is essentially every person and institution that owns a piece of the company. While Noront the corporation has not bought FWR shares on market, there may well be enough institutions that hold a fair amount of Noront that own a good amount of shares in Noront. If the merger will bring about a value that is greater than the indvidual parts, then these Noront friendly institutions will likely tender to Noront or wait for a better transfer point. Regardless, they will have been able to each accumulate enough FWR shares individually and still be under the radar. If these are tendered to Noront, Noront may just have a majority.
I still believe Noront went into this battle at the request of their own major shareholders who were concerned with the PPs that were being directed at Cliffs last spring. They may have been accumulating shares for this very moment the last six months.
That said, I re-read some of the Ember details in my post and it is scary how similar the story is to our current one. Even down to the 7 million dollar termination fee.
M1.
