Poison Pill?

Ok so I have a question regarding a poison pill. Lets say an investor is trying to do a hostile takeover of a company. The company has a policy that anyone who purchases up to 20% of the oustandings will trigger a poison pill and they cannot participate in the rights offering. So would the investor be able to avoid trigerring the poison pill by purchasing only 19% and then having various trusts and funds purchase another 19% each. This way the investor would have 19%, a trust would have 19%, another fund would have 19%, and essentially overtake the majority of the company. Would this be possible?

5 Comments
 
mrb87

Usually you have to disclose how many shares you beneficially own (so if you are subject to Rule 13-d and acquire more shares under a different structure, you must disclose the additional ownership). Likewise, poison pills are usually written with ultimate beneficial ownership in mind.

Yep. Nothing would stop them from the from working with other groups, but they would have to own a minority share I believe.
If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!
 

If the funds are separate and you are operating as a group, you have to do a joint filing and so your group would count as having triggered the poison pill.

There is essentially no such thing as a sponsor-backed hostile takeover in the US anymore. Partially because it's almost always an idiotic thing to do economically for the potential sponsor, but mostly because the laws governing M&A involving public companies are designed to slow down the process and ensure that shareholders get the highest and best price.

 

Cool, thanks for the responses. So I guess the only way to get around a poison pill is buying taking your offer straight to shareholders and convince them to side with you.

Array
 

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