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I think price goes up today.

No point in reconvening the court meeting unless it is intended to make an improved offer.

Looks like the market thinks the offer will be rejected. Recent share sales have been going through at lower prices.

I suspect that the Patels have no more money so price may drop for a while. There after cash flow from WK should see us well over the offer price within months.

Good luck to everyone who stayed the course.

Latest RNS shows that Cannacord sold nearly 4m shares @ 13.25. Perhaps someone is having doubts that the deal will proceed.

I have just complained to the London Stock Exchange.

Would be great if Shanta has to retract the RNS.

Whilst I am none-to-hopeful of a reply, it was worth a shot if nothing else.

How does this work?

As far as I can understand it, the RNS reporting system is meant for company news. This last RNS contains no company news whatsoever. Shanta have just given Bidco a free platform to promote its interests which unless and until its bid succeeds, are not the same as the company’s interests. Surely, this must be against the rules. Does any one know and is there a way to complain?

Peterm35 makes a good point here. Why hasn’t an RNS been issued noting all vote no recommendations? It’s Ketan Patel who is the director of Shanta though. The comments quoted are from his brother, Bad Pal, who is the CFO of Bidco.

It’s difficult to say.

On the one hand, the share price inching up towards the offer price could indicate that the market believes that the offer will succeed.

On the other hand, the market may think that the offer will fail but, the share price may be rising because of a perceived view that should it fail, the chances of a higher offer have increased.

Based on the time taken for the share price to get to this level and the continued buying by the French, my bet is on the latter.

You should not have to pay to vote. Someone else mentioned that it would cost them £20 but, for everyone else it was part of the service.

Doesn’t make sense for them to come in this late if they are just arbitraging. They could have got in at under 13p had they acted earlier and by not acting quicker, they could have missed a higher third party bid. I am with Hounddog on this one. I think they have concluded that that Saturn will up its offer.

Some biggish round number sales going through. Wonder if one of the II’s is trimming its exposure. Should see this in the RNS’s.

Interesting comment re WK.

Do you think the Patels have a deal in their back pocket with the Chinese for WK? Might explain why they are happy to finance with a bridging loan?

They have a chance of a higher bid before month end plus 13.65p as a backstop.

Hope I am wrong but I suspect that if no new bid before the cutoff for voting they will take the money and run.

Nonetheless, I still think that there is every chance that this will get voted down.

I wonder if these hedge funds look at what’s going on on boards like this as part of their decision making process?

Shanta’s website provides (albeit out of date) information regarding its nine largest shareholders. Their combined holdings amount to 57.6% of the total. Of these, 21.8% are retail investors (10.5% Hargreaves Lansdown, 7.9% Interactive and 3.4% A J Bell). So, of the known shareholders, nearly 38% are retail investors.

As regards the remaining 42.4% of investors, I suspect that an even higher proportion of these are retail investors. Accordingly, over 40% of the total shares could be in private hands.

With only 25% needed to vote this outrageous offer down, the outcome is in the hands of the retail investors. We don’t need any institutional votes. That is provided apathy doesn’t win.

So don’t take 3.51% as a sign of hopelessness and give up. It’s actually a great source of encouragement.

From the good work done by kadavul we seem to account for around 5.5% of the market cap here. This is maybe one seventh of the private investor total. Multiply our 3.51% by 7 and if we are a representative sample of all retail investors, we are already at 24.57%. We are however, probably more against this here than the average private investor and, we are more likely to vote. So, we need to get our full vote out to compensate for apathy elsewhere. But. we can do it even if all of the institutions vote “Yes”!

I fear that Samson is buying to vote Yes. If the shares are bought at 12.20 and they get back 12.65 in under two months that’s an annualised return of over 20%. Sampson advertises itself as an event driven investor. I guess it does this regularly.

Does anyone know anything about this principle of law?

I have just stumbled upon it but it seems that Company Directors must ensure that the interests of minority shareholders are protected. They do this by making sure that they do not favour the interests of one group of shareholders over another.

Here is an extract from Patel’s statement as a major shareholder

“Furthermore, the lack of trading liquidity prevents ourselves and other institutional shareholders from being able to exit without risk of causing a detrimental impact on the share price”

Here is an extract from Tony Durrant’s statement as Shanta shareholder

“As such it provides an exit opportunity in cash for all shareholders taking into account the current gold price as well as the operational and other risks inherent in the business.”

As private investors, we can exit our positions at anytime without any risk of a detrimental impact on the share price. Alternatively, we can choose to hold on to our positions taking account of the current gold price as well as the operational and other risks inherent in the business. In this regard, many of us will be guided by the many analysts who, on average, (correct me if I am wrong) value the company at close on 30p per share.

This transaction therefore favours the interests of the large institutional investors (who want to sell out) over the interests of the private investors (who want to stay invested). Private investors are already able to liquidate their positions at full market price so they gain nothing from this transaction. Instead, they lose the option of being able to keep our shares. They are forced to hand them over at a price none of them would accept, just because a few institutions want to cash in.

For all we know, Patel may have threatened the board with a dump of Saturn’s shares on the market if his deal did not meet with their approval. He may well have sounded out some of the top shareholders as well, some of whom, he may have known would sell if they could unload their shares at full market price. Fearing the wroth of major shareholders, the board caved. If you are a professional director in a mining company, you won’t get any new appointments if institutional shareholders don’t like you.

I will try to do some more research but would appreciate any thoughts and comments.

Correction. That's £3,385,000 worth of shares

Latest RNS. Threadneedle dumped 3.385m shares yesterday @ 13p. Obviously, they were not convinced that the deal would go through.

Voted against on A J Bell. 77,480.

I was wondering where all of the shares that have been bought recently have been coming from too. No one is selling and you would think that the MMs share floats would be exhausted by now.

Price not going up shows that there is great uncertainty as whether the deal gets voted through.

Still can’t vote on A J Bell.

Some big purchases going through but no recent Form 8.3.

Maybe someone new is building a stake but hasn’t hit 1% yet?

The divi will (or should) be paid even if deal does not go through. For this reason, I have ignored it for calculation purposes.