I just got a call from Bruce Hodgman reminding me that proxies needed to be in by 5pm today. So they must be a little concerned about the vote. So everyone get your votes in.

KWG is already trading ex-dividend since the record date is 15 Dec and is 8/8.5. Interestingly the DDI shares are already showing in my Interactive Brokers account. I can't find a quote for DDI yet. Where are you seeing the quote?

You can add my 900,000

A "friendly takeover" also requires a third party appraisal. This is actually much more commonly the case when an insider attempts a takeover and the regulations are designed mostly to reduce the natural conflicts of interest when this occurs. (Management buyouts - minority squeeze-outs etc.)

I think that unfortunately this is very unlikely. KWG had the ability to slow down the process by taking the full five days before declining to match the CLF offer and they chose not to. If anything was brewing they would have delayed as long as possible.

After the tender ends Cliffs has 120 days if they want to force the remainder to sell using a Second Stage Business Combination. In order to do this, they will need a vote and must get 66.7% of the shares to vote in favour. For that 120 days as long as the price is at least 0.19 they get to vote all the shares they receive in the tender (but not those they already own). They will not be able to vote the Mineralfield shares if they paid anything extra for the lock-up agreement.

After the 120 days they will no longer be able to vote their shares in an almalgamation and will need a majority of any shares they do not own in order to complete the buy-out. Additionally they will need to get an independent valuation before tendering for shares (as in KWG.)

So if Cliffs receives less than 66.7% of the shares in the tender they will have to either improve the offer for any hold-outs if they are determined to own the whole company or live with minority shareholders who have significant protection under security laws.