Arborbridge wrote:That seems all a bit muddled up.
Whether the company is overmanned or not is open to debate, but the point is that Brexit is now giving them a perfect excuse to shelter the company from take over by being within the Dutch legal framework - and who can blame them?
I think I could - because anyone taking over the current dual-company structure would have to get it past
both the UK takeover rules
and the Dutch takeover rules - just as this unification has to be approved by both the shareholders of Unilever plc and the shareholders of Unilever NV.
So if protecting the company from takeover is their motivation for this, it seems decidedly wrongheaded to me. You don't make a door more secure by removing one of the two locks on it, even if it is the weaker lock...
Arborbridge wrote:Excuse my ignorance, but the witholding tax - isn't that a personal issue rather than a concern of the management? If my SIPP provider is anything to go by, the answer is "you're on your own". So apart from bitching PIs, why would ULVR be bothered?
That's a rather loaded question - it assumes that the only opposition they're facing is "bitching PIs"! And there is an answer that they should be bothered by bitching investors of any kind - as long as all they're doing is bitching. When it comes to
voting, however, they should be concerned when there are enough investors voting against the unification proposal, because the unification simply won't happen without sufficient shareholders voting in its favour.
And as monabri wrote earlier in the thread:
monabri wrote:M&G are adding their support to the "no" vote.
"According to the newspaper ( The Times) , M&G - Unilever's thirteenth largest shareholder - came out against Unilever's plans to scrap its dual UK-Dutch structure, joining other investors who are against it such as Aviva Investors, Lindsell Train and Columbia Threadneedle. Together, the four shareholders own more than 5% of Unilever."
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exc ... 40000.html
That doesn't necessarily mean the Unilever have a lot to worry about, but it's definitely have more than just "bitching PIs"!
Edit: And by the way, my SIPP manager emailed me today to say they'd set up a couple of corporate actions on their website to allow their Unilever shareholders to vote their shares at the Extraordinary General Meeting and the Court Meeting, and I've used them to do so. Not certain exactly what your "you're on your own" response was about, but if it was about voting (rather than for instance getting advice about the Dutch withholding tax issues), not all SIPP managers are like them...
Gengulphus