Member Info for Addlepate

Spoke to Equiniti today to double-check they had our acceptances as I worry about these things (they did!)

Among other things they said that they expect payment to be no later than 14 days from the offer being declared unconditional (no mention of another 5 days, though see @Hounddog10's post of 2 May at 11:41), that the offer remains open for acceptance until further notice, that there is no defined date yet for the offer to close, and that they will give at least 14 days notice of the offer closing.

I guess this relates to mopping up remaining shares to get to 90%+. Hope this helps those who still have acceptances to sort out. Equiniti helpline is +44 (0) 333 207 6505

@Houndog10 thanks for all the information and thoughts you've posted.

After some thinking (and procrastination) I've logged on this morning and accepted the offer. There doesn't seem to be a lot of logic in not doing so for me. While there is a lot of noise about RM being worth more, USO, property portfolio etc. there are as you say a lot of restructuring costs and time and it's not obvious there will be other offers. I don't understand the ins and outs of all the small trades that are going on but it doesn't seem obvious there will be institutional holdouts or the share price will leap (for what it's worth, Equiniti are saying the offer will go through and they're close to 75%, but then they would say that). It's perhaps not likely, but I'm wary of the 75% - 90% trap in a private company, and finally as a nominee shareholder Equiniti's normal selling charges are high whereas there are no charges for accepting the offer, so there's a financial incentive for me to accept.

So ... just spoke to Equiniti on the IDs offer helpline. They say the offer is still open but were vague on whether the timetable is still suspended or not (didn't seem to understand the question). They said they are very close to the 75% acceptance (but then they would say that, I suppose) and they expect the offer to go unconditional around the end of March, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later. Not sure how meaningful this is.

Thanks - so still suspended, then (?)

I'm thinking I am going to take the offer; my shares are with Equniti so (as I understand it) selling is free through the offer and £££ otherwise, and I'm wary of getting into the shares in a private company trap given the uncertainties.

Trying to work out where we are here, having not been paying attention for a while. There seems to be various speculation about deadlines and unconditional dates, but nothing firm. Is that the case? Is the offer still suspended at present? Thanks.