Shell to buy BG for $70 billion

Headlines such as these demonstrate what is wrong with corporate governance. It may just be that keen journalists present the takeover/merger as a fait accompli - we all know that the shareholders of both companies will still be asked to approve the deal. But apart from the dubious practice of break-up fees the gist of the sentence is that this is a done deal agreed by a quasi-feudal caste of senior managers and their poodle boards over the heads of shareholders and employees. The correct way would be to consult the stakeholders from the beginning, working out the pros and cons of various options (should the del be done, why? what are the benefits) and then putting the options to a shareholder vote. Expensive consultants should be kept at bay and costs scrutinised carefully.

Kick-back Fraud in M+A transactions

News that German authorities investigate up to 30 employees of Bayerische Landesbank in connection with the takeover of Hypo Alpe Adria raises an important but often neglected point with regard to Merger and Takeover transactions. We do not even want to delve into the fact that many are value-destroying at least half the time. This has been proven in many academic studies and any experienced investor will have watched in disbelief when supposedly smart managements engage in deals that make no sense for one of the two involved parties. While better corporate governance will help to alleviate many weaknesses of the merger process little attention has been paid to a darker side of this process. As the abuse is incredibly difficult to prove not many instances of outright fraud have come to light over the years. Of course, situations where incumbent management of the takeover target or one of the merged companies is promised attractive new terms in the combined business do not pass the smell test. The practice that option and share awards to management are 'crystallised' and can be cashed in before their nominal due date can also be considered to be a questionable inducement to go ahead with a business combination. Passing on explicit bribes such as hard cash is even more difficult to detect but can never be excluded as long as decisions about major transactions are often made by a small circle behind closed doors. Only the restriction of all decision making to the full body of shareholders - and even then in a process subject to strict regulation - will prevent Merger and Takeover deals from being influenced by corrupt practices.
(28/02/2011)

NYSE/Deutsche Boerse Merger: Backroom deals no longer acceptable

That the US suffers from an excess of litigation is well known. There is also a surplus of shareholders willing to take a chance and sue companies in the hope of getting some financial gain at the expense of the other shareholders. But when a shareholder announces (Bloomberg) that he is going to sue NYSE Euronext seeking to block its planned $9.53 billion sale to Deutsche Boerse AG we have sympathy for his motives.
Mergers always carry the risk that one of the two parties is profiting at the expense of the other. It may be the buyer or the seller but as value is not easy to ascertain it is likely that in the majority of the transactions there is a loosing party. All the more reason to prevent managements from taking hasty decisions. Pro-Gov is against all sorts of 'lock-ins' that make it costly for one of the two parties to abandon the deal if their respective shareholders reject the proposal. The voting system should also be adjusted to avoid a narrow group of shareholders to dominate the outcome of any vote. The quorum should be high enough to prevent the buyer from reaping the equivalent of the 'consumer surplus' - the situation where dispirited shareholders that would have held out for a higher-than-agreed buyout price throw in the towel in order to avoid being left with holdings as a (largely disenfranchised) minority shareholder.
(17/02/2011)

Should Bid targets pay break fees?

We do not think that bid targets should be allowed to enter into binding agreements to pay any indemnity to the bidder until the shareholders have been able to formally vote on the merger/sale proposal.

All too often, the amounts that are agreed are way above any reasonable costs that the bidder may have incurred.

One has to assume that this type of agreement more often than not is intended to discourage competing bids. As such, break-up fees are not in the interest of the company's shareholders.