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Thanks Fred, I had a feeling that the II's would arrange a pretty strong group of foot soldiers in the hope of outnumbering the PI's in the headcount,having monitored this board .

Fred I asked the question not (just) out of cynicism but to establish whether it was clear from the numbers that PI's did not have a simple numerical majority ie did it look like the II's etc were in the majority?

So Fred, after all the thousands of angry posts here from dozens(maybe hundreds) of posters, how many actually bothered to turn their words in to actions?

Chesh its dull and windy on Lanzarote today and senora Casa is doing the washing !- whats a man to do?

FFC I am not too worried as my punt represents <0.5% of my portfolio,and i have a sell hedge at 3p-5p , tho' I freely admit its untypical of me - but I am on holiday!
Hope you're off your crutches soon !

It's not my thing but keeping an eye on the live price 4.47-4.88 as i write and noting that Socgen picked up 35 mill shares at sub 4p yesterday , it looks like the markets think its a yes vote today

FFC i got mine at precisely 3.83 p through impeccable timing (or maybe dumb luck!!)but felt the need to justify myself as I have been preaching caution here for ages!

FFC You have very right to vote as you choose and are to be congratulated for your efforts in that regard - I just happen to think you are wrong, and that the consequences of a no vote might be negative for you and your fellow holders.
On the assumption that both votes will be positive I have bought a few this pm at ~3.8p, a bold move for me as I am normally extra -cautious, but couldn't resist the possibility of a short-term 40% profit to partially offset the recent >10% fall in my main portfolio!

Achille that's interesting and news to me.
I was being somewhat facetious in my previous post, but did make the point a few days ago that a determined (if misguided ) group of small shareholders might cost 80000 plus of their fellow holders a fair bit of money by voting down the only possibility of a cash return on their investment by winning the headcount and I genuinely don't think that's how the takeover code should work.
Tomorrow , whatever the outcome might, I suspect , lead to a review and amendment of the code or a series of legal challenges by the losing side , whichever that is.

LTV yeah Polygon now hold(or control) a stake large enough to prevent full control by AAL. See my post of 10 Feb at 7.33 for the references in the takeover code. There will be hastily convened conference calls going on between now and tomorrows meeting and AAL are in a bind , they almost certainly need the hedgies to vote in favour to win the "Share "vote and they need to outnumber the angry PI's at the "headcount".
As to the latter , in AAl's shoes I would have arranged several hundred " tame" small shareholders with 1 vote each queuing overnight outside the HAC for the court meeting to fill the room with "yes" voters.The door policy tomorrow will be interesting!
Against all my cautious motives I am seriously considering a punt on two yesses tomorrow, I hazard a guess that the number of II's who are determined enough to write off their remaining investment is insufficient to win. As an aside, if AAL were to win the cash would be with shareholders within a couple of weeks.

Gert Absolutely true, I don't know how much I don't know , but I know it's probably a lot!
Got a bottle of Bermejo to finish so I will know even less shortly.
Good night!

FFC We cannot rely only on "facts".It is necessary to interpret the facts and add a degree of knowledge or analysis to draw conclusions and then act on those conclusions.Too many here have accepted as "facts" what the company says.
Let's face it SXX are not neutral in this game , their vested interests do NOT always match those of their investors,if anyone doubted that surely they no longer do.
I genuinely regret that many naive investors didn't listen to an alternative view and are subsequently tens of thousands of pounds poorer.I also regret that many posters failed to respond to fact-based cautious posters with a reasoned response , rather they chose to attack the posters intentions.
My intentions her have always and only been to add to the understanding of investors or at worst to make them think about their investment . I make absolutely no apology for that.

FFC I examine the information in the public domain,add my understanding of the way the markets work and offer an informed view of what might happen .If you care to examine my posts here going back almost two years , you will see I have been pretty accurate.I suggest you start with my post on 8 August 2018 titled " note of caution" at which point the SP was 37.28p !! and many posts since. Had you taken note of those you might have seen that I have been correct as to the trajectory of the SXX SP. Had you taken my advice you might well be much better off, instead you have offered nothing but personal insult and failed to attempt to refute my analysis- that's a fact!

The problem is that there are a few things we are allowed to know because of stock exchange rules and many that we are not.We can know the party holding the CFD , but nothing about the counterparty save that they hold , in their own name , the shares, and are willing to accept a modest fee for the risk of losing them, the date of the transaction and hence roughly the SP at the time,the price per share paid ,but not the "difference" nor even if it is positive or negative, nor the key dates during which the deal applies, nor any conditions agreed between the parties ie a "if the vote fails all bets are off"clause .It is therefore difficult to be absolutely certain of Polygons intentions, costs or value at risk. however as previously note , it is very unlikely that Polygon are on the hook for £30+ million any circs.

Brick..My analysis is based on the evidence of the Rns's as to price and the reasonable assumption that Polygon were buying to the "long" side, ie expecting a small price rise as the deal closes or ( maybe) their intention to force a boost to the deal price by AAL if it was felt necessary to clinch the vote. A strategy copied and more openly pressed by Odey. Knowing a bit about Polygons modus operandi I would, like you, be very surprised if they hadn't also protected the downside within their transactions. Unfortunately we cannot be privy to the wording of the contract and though I submitted a question to their analysts day last Friday they(hardly surprisingly) didn't offer to clarify their rational for the CFD transactions

Polygon hold mainly CFD's for their ~10% interest in SXX that means they haven't BOUGHT the shares, merely taken an option to buy them at a price agreed with the owners of those shares.
For the privilege of that right to buy they have paid less than 0.1p per share (I think the actual sum in most cases is less than half of that) , SO, they have spent less than half a million pounds to set up their position. If the vote is yes they can exercise their option to buy and clear maybe a penny a share profit, ie maybe £7 mill for a £ 0.5 mill outlay. If the vote is no they lose at worst £0.5 mill.It is a low cost, high return clever strategy(which is why i hold shares in their parent company).

WWGUK I believe that in most cases brokers,asset managers etc will not actually attend such meetings merely submitting data on behalf their customers. The attendees would mostly be those representing hedge funds, insurance co's, investment banks etc who are holding stock in their own right, but despite having held shares in a number of taken over companies I've never attended one!

The only bits of new data we have, courtesy of today's Times and HL's unusual openness are :
1. HL hold 16.5% of all SXX stock, on behalf of PI's
2. Only 25% of PI's with the HL platform have voted
3. Of those more have voted NO than YES
SO what (if any)information can we draw from the above, with which to predict the outcome of Tuesday's vote?
Lets start from the presumption that PI's ,despite the sales lately, still hold 50% of the stock (in itself a very unusual and exceptionally high figure) we have a pretty large sample representing about one third of all PI's in SXX
Lets assume that HL's PI's are typical and that what they do will be reflected in the choices of all other PI's, then we can presume that 75% of all PI's WILL NOT VOTE either because of indifference, ignorance, frustration or inability to manage the process.
Let's further assume that the percentages for YES and NO as voted by PI's with other firms are the same and lets finally assume that the NO's outweigh the yesses by 4 to 1.
By my calculation, then, of 50% of privately held stock, ONLY 12.5% will have voted, and of that only 10% will have voted NO.That clearly isn't enough for prevent a 75% stock vote of yes.
It follows that Tuesday events are dependent on the "headcount" vote and the attitudes of II's in the "stock" vote.I suspect that leaves the decision in the hands of those of you who get into the headcount 'cos I would be very surprised if the II's swing the stock vote to no.That's a very unusual, indeed in my fairly lengthy investing experience, an unique circumstance.
Feel free to discuss the above , as it comes with the very strong caveat that it is no more than a set assumptions as described.

As a long term investor here, recognising that it is pretty much a geared play on the FTSE I have topped up substantially.I work on the basis that within my timescales of years , the FTSE and hence LGEN will be higher and in the meantime I will collect 5-6% divi.The current panic is a great opportunity to buy at a sharp discount to fair value.

HI Fred you remembered my offer of a cautionary tale which helped me to refine my cautious investment stance .Here it is copied from another board where I posted it some time ago.
"A while ago someone (clearly a super-intelligent chap) commented on my crystal ball and my unerring ability to predict the path of share prices. Today as a one-off never to be repeated offer I am willing to let you all have the secret of my success.

First you start investing thirty years ago, you invest carefully and find some success. after a while you come to believe that this is easy, your assets are rising and then you realise that you are making as much money investing as working.

So you resign from your job , sell your reasonably valuable house to fatten your portfolio , move to a modest cottage in the countryside and continue to invest.You diversify, selling call options against your FTSE 100 blue chips. Which means that if the SP rises you are contracted to sell the shares at an agreed price ,BUT you get the profit of the SP rise and a "fee" for the option . When the SP rises you buy it back , sell the option again and again . You make even more money and get even bolder you trade "straddles" and strangles"and soon you have a considerable sum. Bolder still you start selling "uncovered calls"for which you receive substantial sums but bear significant risk , but I knew what i was doing didn't I !!
One day Senora Casa sees an ad in The times for property in Spain and as we are flush, off we go down to Andalucia, see a few, agree to buy one.Saturday and we drive down to the coast , having Coffee I read the copy of the FT I found in the local newsagents(remember no internet in rural spain, no mobile coverage).
First thing i always do is check the Share prices at the back . one in particular BAE,I have a large position and the SP has crashed on rumours of a lost major contract!!!! I casually calculate my rough position . I am down by a substantial 5 figure sum ,actually more than the cost of the house we are about to buy, and more than I have made in the last two years!!! Nonchalantly I mop up the spilled coffee and ponder my options (quite literally)
Saturday night sleepless , sunday night sleepless, monday morning in to the local village, on the phone to my broker, he confirms that he will taking almost all the cash in the account as "margin". I ask him to close the trade.
Tuesday morning back to the same phone (with a fresh supply of 100 peseta coins)I call the broker he apologises that because the market was a bit frantic he couldn't close the position and pauses..............But ,BAE has recovered and if I wish i can now close for ....... a few hundred quid loss. He probably heard my YEEEESSSS without the aid of the phone!
So that's why I invest cautiously , my name here is a daily reminder of hubris and overconfidence ,though we did manage to buy the house in the pines.