funduffer wrote:So what happens next?
Quite easy to find out on the
CMA's website, where the
article about the SSE/NPower merger is currently the first story. A quote from it:
The CMA now welcomes views and evidence on its provisional decision by 20 September 2018 before coming to a final view. The statutory deadline for the CMA’s final report is 22 October 2018.
Further details are available on the investigation
case page.
If one sees an RNS saying that the directors of a company "note" something that another organisation or person has said and wants to know more, trying to find the horse's mouth is always a good idea!
funduffer wrote:I think - my SSE shares get split between 2 companies - the new domestic energy supplier formed by the merging of the SSE and NPower parts that do this, and the remaining rump of SSE?
The CMA's provisional decision doesn't change what is expected to happen, other than to make it look less likely to be blocked by the CMA from actually happening at all.
What's expected to happen is AFAIAA unchanged from what was expected when the
shareholder circular was published about 2 months ago, beyond the fact that the company meeting to get shareholder approval for the deal was held in July and the
required resolutions were passed. Not that I think there was any real chance of them not being - such resolutions almost always are and any rare exception to that for something being done by a large company is pretty much guaranteed to hit the headlines. I.e. if there had been any trouble about passing the resolutions, we'd have known about it!
funduffer wrote:I guess it all depends on the dividend policy of the 2 companies whether any action is required, or maybe I should do a Doris and just ignore it all.
It's too late to do a proper
Doris - she probably wouldn't have known the merger was happening at all, and if she had, she'd have had zero interest in it. So just by posting about it, you've forfeited your Doris credentials! ;
-)
But a bit more seriously, the shareholder circular said "
MergeCo’s dividend policy is expected to be included in the prospectus relating to the
MergeCo Shares, which is anticipated to be published shortly prior to Admission in the first quarter of 2019.", so if you want to decide what to do based on the two companies' dividend policies, don't hold your breath - not unless you can hold it for several months...
By the way, "Admission" is defined in the shareholder circular to be "
the admission of MergeCo Shares to the premium listing segment of the Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities", and the circular's expected timetable has it, the start of trading in the new company's shares, completion of the deal and crediting of the shares to CREST accounts all happening on the same day. That applies both to crediting them to personal CREST accounts and to nominee companies' CREST accounts, which means that holders in nominee accounts should see them only a bit later - just how soon depends on how quickly and efficiently the broker's administration of such events runs. Holders in certificated form may have to wait up to a couple of weeks more for their certificates.
So basically, that advice not to hold one's breath until one knows both companies' dividend policies applies equally well to anything closely associated with the whole deal finally going through. What that basically says to me is that any decision about selling
before the deal goes through will also have to be made before I know the new company's dividend policy. Possibly I will get a small window after the prospectus has been published and before the deal actually goes through, but whether I will depends on exactly how "shortly prior" the prospectus publication is: the window might conceivably not include any time the market is open... And even if it does and I can sell during that period, it could well lead to administrative mess (having any sort of share reorganisation happen between a trade being agreed and it settling will require special action by brokers to ensure that everyone gets what they're entitled to...). And in any case, it seems to me that the biggest factor in the future dividend prospects is not the two companies' dividend policies, but the government's policies on gas/electricity companies, and that the dangers of the latter differ markedly for the two companies. So I at least may want to make different decisions about selling the new company and the remainder of SSE - and I
cannot sell them independently of each other until
after Admission.
So basically, I will simply be waiting and seeing until the whole deal goes through in Q1 next year. Or it doesn't - it's presumably got some more hurdles to clear before then, otherwise it would probably be going through sooner. But it's cleared the hurdle of getting shareholder approval, and today's news makes it look pretty likely to clear the hurdle of getting competition clearance in the next couple of months.
Gengulphus
Your moves were ahead of the curve.