(Alliance News) - Fulcrum Utility Services Ltd on Wednesday said 39.87% of shareholders have rejected Harwood Capital LLP's tender offer as it labelled the offer "opportunistic".
The utility infrastructure and services firm said Harwood's tender offer for up to 53.5 million of Fulcrum's shares at 26.25 pence each "significantly undervalues" the company and advised shareholders to take no action nor to sell any shares to Harwood at or below the tender price
Fulcrum also said that 39.87% of shareholders have also communicated their intention to oppose any resolution to cancel the admission of its shares to trading on London's AIM market if proposed by Harwood or Bayford Group.
Under AIM Rules, delisting of a company's shares requires a majority of 75% of votes cast at a shareholder meeting.
"The board notes Harwood's stated intention, should the tender offer complete, to seek board representation for itself and Bayford Group and to use this as a platform to propose a resolution to delist the company from AIM. The board considers that this would manifestly not be in the best interests of independent shareholders given the loss of liquidity currently provided as a company admitted to trading on AIM."
Fulcrum assured that its balance sheet remains strong. It added that while it intends to pay no dividend for financial 2020 in an effort to conserve cash amid Covid-19 uncertainty, it expects to return up to GBP20 million to shareholders by way of special dividends over the next three to four years as well as to re-instate dividend payments as soon as is advisable.
The company also said that sales orders in its third quarter to the end of December were at a record GBP17.4 million, adding that its order book to the end of March is at around GBP71 million, up by 17% year-on-year.
The stock was trading 2.8% higher at 25.70p each on Wednesday afternoon in London.
By Ife Taiwo; ifetaiwo@alliancenews.com
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