This academic study is food for thought regarding the time spent negotiating walk-away rights in public M&A deals. Here is the abstract:
Practitioners and academics have long assumed that the legal terms of acquisition agreements add value to mergers, yet legal scholarship has failed to subject this premise to empirical scrutiny. The conventional wisdom is that markets must value the tremendous amount of time and money that M&A lawyers invest in negotiating and tailoring the legal provisions of acquisition agreements to address the distinctive risks facing each merger. Otherwise, the merging parties would not spend so much on legal fees. But the empirical question remains of whether the legal terms of acquisition agreements add any value beyond the financial terms of mergers (negotiated by investment bankers). For this reason we designed a modified event study of target company stock prices that shows that M&A lawyers’ extensive negotiations on the legal terms of acquisition agreements do not add significant value to mergers.
Our analysis of target company stock prices leverages the fact that merger announcements (which lay out the financial terms) are generally disclosed one to four trading days before the disclosure of acquisition agreements (which delineate the legal terms). We focused on a data set of cash-only public company mergers spanning the decade from 2002 to 2011 to ensure that the primary influence on target company stock prices is the expected value of whether a legal condition will prevent the deal from closing.
Our analysis shows that there is no economically consequential market reaction to the disclosure of the acquisition agreement. Markets appear to recognize that parties publicly committed to a merger have strong incentives to complete the deal regardless of what legal contingencies are triggered. We argue that the results suggest that M&A lawyers are fixated on the wrong problems by focusing too much on negotiating “contingent closings” that allow clients to call off a deal, rather than “contingent consideration” that compensates clients for closing deals that are less advantageous than expected. This approach can enable M&A lawyers to protect clients against the effects of the clients’ own managerial hubris in pursuing mergers that may (and often do) fall short of expectations.
Hats off to Kevin LaCroix for another fine blog entitled “Takeover Litigation in 2012” discussing Professors Davidoff & Cain’s new paper showing litigation over deals continued at a high rate last year…
The Dell saga is reaching another chapter. As noted in this DealBook blog, Blackstone has dropped out of the bidding (for which it will be reimbursed for conducting diligence, as I have blogged before). The DealBook blog includes the text of Blackstone’s letter, which supports the special committee’s argument that Dell’s business is on the decline.
Gibson Dunn’s Jim Moloney recently blogged:
The Division of Corporation Finance recently granted no-action relief to Alamos Gold, a Canadian corporation, in connection with its proposed acquisition of Aurizon Mines Ltd., another Canadian corporation. The proposed acquisition is structured as a tender offer with consideration consisting of a mix of stock and cash subject to proration that would limit each form of consideration to a specified maximum aggregate amount in both the initial and any subsequent offering period. The Division granted an exemption from Rule 14d-10(a)(2) under the Exchange Act, which provides that no bidder shall make a tender offer unless the consideration offered and paid to any security holder for its securities tendered is the highest consideration paid to any other security holder for its securities tendered. In addition, relief was granted from Rules 14d-11(b) and 14d-11(f) under the Exchange Act, which provide that a bidder may offer a mix of consideration in a subsequent offering period provided there is no ceiling on any form of consideration offered, and the same form and amount of consideration is offered in both the initial and subsequent offering periods.
The Staff’s position in Alamos Gold is consistent with the no-action relief granted in prior Canadian cross-border transactions involving a mix of stock and cash consideration subject to aggregate maximums, including Barrick Gold Corporation (avail. January 19, 2006) and Teck Cominco Limited (avail. June 21, 2006).
This relief comes at a time when there is a noticeable increase in cross-border M&A activity and shareholder activism in Canada. In particular, Coeur d’Alene Mines’ recent announcement of its CAD$350 million acquisition of Orko Silver Corp. and First Quantum Minerals’ CAD$5.1 billion acquisition of Inmet Mining Corp. Thus, when structuring acquisition transactions in Canada, and elsewhere, bidders should consider the Division’s increasingly flexible approach to allowing the offer of stock and cash alternatives in tender offers.
Cornerstone Research does a great job marketing its studies – and the latest M&A litigation one is no exception. Kevin LaCroix has read it and gives his analysis in this blog…
Here’s news from Greenberg Traurig’s Cliff Neimeth: Legislative amendments have been introduced to the Delaware State Bar Association (Section on Corporation Laws) which, if adopted, could have a meaningful structural impact on two-step transactions (i.e., acquisitions effected pursuant to a first-step tender or exchange offer followed by a back end merger).
The proposed amendments (which would apply, on an opt-in basis only to target’s listed on a national securities exchange or whose voting stock is held by more than 2,000 holders) would add a new provision to Section 251 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (i.e., subsection (h) ) to permit the consummation of a second-step merger (following completion of the front-end tender or exchange offer) if certain structural and disclosure conditions are satisfied. In other words, the need to seek and obtain stockholder approval for the merger would be eliminated even though the purchaser did not (whether directly in the initial tender offer period, as extended, or subsequently by means of exercising a “top up” option or using a Rule 14d-11 “subsequent offer period”) acquire the 90% or more of the target’s outstanding voting stock necessary to effect a “short-form” merger under Section 253 of the DGCL.
Specifically, a stockholder vote on the back end merger no longer would be necessary, so long as (i) the merger agreement expressly states that the second-step merger is being effected under (new) Section 251(h) of the DGCL and that the merger will be completed as promptly as practicable after consummation of the tender or exchange offer; (ii) the purchaser commences and completes, in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement, an “any and all” tender or exchange offer for such number of outstanding target shares that otherwise would be entitled to vote to approve the merger agreement and, in fact, owns such requisite percentage after consummation of the tender or exchange offer; (iii) the second-step merger consideration to be paid and paid for shares not cancelled in the merger or qualifying for dissenters’ rights is the same as the front-end tender or exchange offer consideration; (iv) the corporation completing the tender offer, in fact, merges with the target, and (v) at the time the target’s directors approve the merger agreement, no constituent party (aggregated with its affiliates and associates) is an “interested stockholder” (i.e., a holder of 15% or more of the target’s outstanding stock) within the meaning of Section 203 of the DGCL (i.e., Delaware’s three-year moratorium/business combination statute).
The proposed legislation, in part, reflects the recognition that over the past 10 years or so top-up options to reach the 90% ownership (short-form merger) threshhold are routine (except, of course, where the target lacks sufficient authorized and unissued capital stock “headroom” to effect the top-up exercise) – especially after the recent Olson v. EV3, In re Cogent and other decisions of the Delaware Court of Chancery completely validating the use of top-ups.
Proposed (new) Section 251 (h) of the DGCL would, if adopted, be an “opt-in” provision. If not used the parties, constituents to the merger agreement will simply continue to use top-up options (if available), “subsequent offer periods” under Rule 14d-11, the so-called Terremark-Verizon and Burger King dual track tender offer-merger proxy structures and other mechanisms that seek to expedite completion of a second-step statutory merger to take out minority holdouts (where a short-form merger is not otherwise available).
As you know, “entire fairness” review does not apply to a short-form merger effected pursuant to Section 253 of the DGCL. The decision to enter into a merger agreement (including one invoking, if adopted, new Section 251(h) and to declare it “advisable” and all other relevant common law fiduciary duties (care, loyalty, candor . . . ), considerations and determinations by the target’s directors would not altered in any way by the proposed amendments.
This legislative development (much like the adoption of Regulation M-A back in 2000 and the SEC’s amendment of the “all-holders/same price” Rules last decade) should lead to an increase in the use of the tender offer structure for negotiated acquisitions. This benefits both the target and the purchaser who share a common interest in selling and purchasing not just legal control, but 100% of the target’s voting equity as quickly as possible. That said this also could put more heat on the tender offer disclosures and perhaps inadvertently incentivize strike suit plaintiffs’ to more closely scrutinize the overall tender offer deal structure, conditions, compliance and disclosure because they won’t have a back-end bite at the apple on a second-step transaction.
Appraisal rights under Section 262 of the DGCL will remain available for shares to be cashed out in the second-step merger and the timing of requisite notices, actions to perfect and the like, could be accelerated under certain circumstances.