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Nice to see it trading above £2 again, but I'm still really none the wiser as to what is driving it. Could it still be follow-through from the NBrown update? I haven't really followed their results, but perhaps I should.

Seems to me like the trading volumes are dropping off a bit in recent days. So if BNP Paribas does still want more, it may have to increase the price it is prepared to pay. Curious that the price of yesterday's trade was actually below that of recent days, although the volume was much lower.

Perhaps we need a tie-breaker then, if anyone else feels like asking the question? I was very specific with my question and they passed me through to their corporate actions people to check the detail. There's no problem voting your shares - there should be a "corporate action scheme of arrangement" icon next to the trade/info/alert icons and if you click on it you get through to a voting screen with the choice of voting FOR or AGAINST the scheme. But my understanding is that this is purely voting your shares in the vote where 75% of shares need to be voted FOR in order for the vote to pass. HL manage this by splitting the shares in their account and voting your shares the way you vote - so they will vote a number of shares FOR and a number of shares AGAINST if some account holders want to vote FOR and some AGAINST. The other vote is for the Court Meeting where they need not only 75% of the shares but also a "majority in number" of the shareholders voting FOR. The person I spoke to at HL came to the conclusion that the HL nominee account would count as a single shareholder for this "majority in number" vote.

I've just spoken to Hargreaves Lansdown about whether for the court meeting (which is what requires a "majority in number" of the shareholders voting in favour) their holding gets a single vote for the "majority in number" count or whether each private investor with shares in the HL nominee account gets their own vote. They suggested that since HL is the only shareholder on the official register HL will only have a single vote. So if you are on the shareholder register in your own right (e.g. you have a certificate) then I think your vote will count for this "majority in number" count, but otherwise I think your shares will count for the "75% of the shares" vote but you will not get your own vote for the "majority in number". So perhaps not quite so easy for private investors to vote the acquisition down if the institutions are in favour.

Too much to hope that someone's got wind of a positive TU in the works?

I'm still struggling to interpret what's happening. Most days recently it appears someone (currently it's BNP Paribas, but previously it was Cicogne) picks up an unfeasibly high proportion of the volume (LSE + ISDX) without moving the price significantly. Is this just the market makers setting a price to take private investors' shares off their hands knowing that an institution is prepared to take whatever it can get at around 19.4p? And is there a queuing system in operation? i.e. Cicogne put in an order for around 5% which has now been filled so now it's BNP's turn?

Not quite resigned to 20p yet, but if we don't get a counter-bidder by Monday, I think it's going to be looking a bit unlikely that one will appear. As far as I can see there was no material new information in yesterday's document, so if anyone had a bid ready to go pending sight of the document then I can't see it needing much further work. Allow for a board meeting late this week and final tweaks over the weekend. I can't see what they would gain by further delay now and the longer they leave it the more difficult (and perhaps risky) it is going to seem to stop the Hytera process I would have thought.

So here's one for conspiracy theorists. On 12th Jan, Hendersons sold 5.5m shares at 19.38p On 13th Jan, BNP Paribas and CIC each bought 1.4m at 19.39p and 19.3944p respectively This looks a bit like an intermediary-managed deal between Hendersons and the 2 French companies, with each one taking very close to 1/4 of the Hendersons sale amount and a very small turn on the deal. We now have 3 French companies buying (Cicogne, BNP Paribas, CIC) or maybe French/Luxembourg, or 4 if you count the (I think) Franco-German Oddo. So do the French see a possibility that the rest of the world appears not to see? And would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that Hendersons have facilitated the latest 2 French companies getting in because Hendersons believe the French companies might just have the ear of a (French) counter-bidder? Probably all a bit too speculative, but something to think about... It might just be more arb players getting involved, or even the same ones (according to google search, Cicogne is Founded and 100% held by Credit-Mutuel CIC Group, so is this the same CIC which bought on Friday?).

AndrewJ - not as far as I know, why do you think it may be? As far as I am aware, someone can make a counter-offer at any point up until the time at which the Hytera offer completes. Even if Sepura shareholders have already voted to accept the Hytera offer at that point, I believe the board would have a fiduciary responsibility to consider the new offer and if appropriate withdraw their support for the Hytera offer.

Having said that, I don't know how nominee accounts are treated for the Court Vote. Do Barclays and Hargreaves Lansdown get 1 vote each (for the "majority in number" count) or does each beneficial shareholder with shares in the single nominee account get their own vote?

You can access it via the "Offer Site" link on the Sepura investor relations site. Not much new I think - although it emphasises how the alternatives to the Hytera deal are likely to have negative share price consequences "probably lead to a material reduction in the value attributable to Sepura Shares." For those wanting to vote against, it is worth noting that for the Court Meeting they need the approval of a "majority in number" of the shareholders who vote, not just 75% of the shares. So small shareholders are on an equal footing with the institutions in this particular element of the vote.

Firwood - read this morning's rns for the expected timetable. Suspension of shares 5pm on 17th Feb, Effective Date 20th Feb, latest date for despatch of cheques/settlement through CREST within 14 days of Effective Date (all indicative dates not firm dates though). Clearly if a counter-bidder does emerge, Sepura shareholders vote against the deal or there are any problems with regulatory consents then this timetable is likely to slip considerably.

Still can't find the Scheme Document on the Sepura site, but I expect it will get there by the end of the day. What's interesting to me is that there isn't much time between the expected date of the vote (9th Feb) and the expected date of the closure of the deal (20th Feb), so they can't be expecting much delay for regulatory consents. If there are any counter-bidders out there then they have to decide whether to come forward before or after the vote. If before, then I would have thought they would declare pretty soon now, once they've checked the Scheme Document to see if there's any new relevant information in there. They could still decide to wait until after the vote, hoping that shareholders reject the Hytera deal and that Hytera then withdraws leaving the company possibly fairly desperate to receive another approach. On balance though, I would have thought delaying until after the vote risks running out of time given the expected closure date, and in any case they might expect that if shareholders do reject the Hytera deal, Hytera would just sweeten it a bit. So I think if there are any counter-bidders they will declare fairly soon now.

I agree that Cicogne is likely to be just playing the arb here. But in deciding that this is an opportunity that it is worth building an arb position in they will have considered how likely the deal is to close and what the chances are of the price changing (either up/down through renegotiation or up through counter-bid). What's interesting to me is that there don't seem to be any institutional shareholders feeding Cicogne, at least none above the 1% disclosure threshold. So I have to assume that they are mopping up shares from private investors (and sub-1% institutions) which the market makers are accumulating for them. That seems to be providing them with a bit more than 1m shares a day on average so far this year. The institutions seem to have decided it is worth staying in (some are obliged to of course because of the "irrevocable" undertakings) which (as with Cicogne buying) I think is an encouraging sign.

This is due to be published on Monday I think and should give us a bit more insight into the state of the business and the reason for the recommendation. Maybe also some words on what has happened to the business since the recommendation was announced - have they seen any pullback from potential clients due to the likely change of control? There is also the opinion from Lazard that the terms are "fair and reasonable" and it will be interesting to see if there is any detail on that. So hopefully some real data to discuss soon.

Think carefully before voting no. A potential counter-bidder may actually choose to wait for the Sepura shareholder vote before making its move. If Sepura shareholders do vote down the deal and Hytera doesn't sweeten it, then the counter-bidder can step in and potentially pick up Sepura at a knock-down price (albeit a slight premium to the Hytera price which was voted down). If Sepura shareholders do vote through the deal then the potential counter-bidder probably has to come in with a bigger premium to overcome the momentum behind closing with Hytera at that point. On the other hand, voting down the deal may well persuade Hytera to sweeten it a bit and there may be no actual counter-bidders waiting in the wings. Not an easy call in my opinion.

No, January 16th has no significance for competing offers in my opinion. It is then that we will see the forward timetable - i.e. 16th January is when they expect to publish the scheme circular which will give the details behind the board's recommendation to vote for the merger and will also set out the (expected) date of the Sepura shareholders meeting to have the vote. I would expect we have at least 1 month from now before the Sepura shareholder vote, so plenty of time for competing offers even if they want to get them in before the Sepura vote. Hytera shareholders have voted for the deal, but since their majority shareholder had already undertaken to vote for it, that's not much of a surprise is it? If the deal were to fail on Hytera's side I think it is far more likely to be down to Chinese regulatory issues (export of foreign currency for example) or end-market regulatory issues (license to operate for a Chinese company) but I would hope that Hytera has already got the Chinese authorities on board.

Not sure - but I saw some of this on the Pace/Arris deal. Banks giving holdings notices but not 8.3 dealing declarations, coming in with chunky positions and then disappearing again. If I had to guess I would say the GS's dealings might be linked to the derivatives held by Oddo. i.e. GS might have been the other side of Oddo's CFD long positions and the "stock loan" which GS declared in the earlier holdings notices was Goldman somehow covering its position.

We're waiting for the "Scheme Document" to be published. This will have details of the forward expected timetable, including the date of the general meeting and court meeting. Sepura are expected to publish the Scheme Document within 28 days of the date of the recommended offer (i.e. 28 days from 16th December).

blackflamingo - as I read them, the "irrevocable undertakings" do put a lot of limitations on what the companies can do, but the "letter of intent" is something very different.