Times Today2 Mar 2020 06:52
The week ahead
Monday March 02 2020, 12.01am, The Times
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Sirius Minerals wants to complete its 23-mile from North Yorkshire to Teesside, where it plans to ship its polyhalite fetiliser worldwide; most of the work is still to be done
Sirius Minerals wants to complete its 23-mile from North Yorkshire to Teesside, where it plans to ship its polyhalite fetiliser worldwide; most of the work is still to be done
ANDREW MCCAREN FOR THE TIMES
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Tomorrow is D-Day for Sirius Minerals, the North Yorkshire fertiliser mine developer. The company’s 5½p-a-share takeover by Anglo American, which Sirius says is the only viable option to stave off administration, will be voted on by shareholders. Approval requires at least 50 per cent of shareholders that vote in favour, representing at least 75 per cent of the votes by share value. The rescue deal might seem like a no-brainer when the alternative is administration, yet many in Sirius’s retail shareholder base — estimated to number 85,000 as of 2018 — are staunchly opposed.
The Times revealed on Saturday that the majority of retail shareholders voting through the Hargreaves Lansdown investment platform had voted against. These votes will be aggregated into one “yes” and one “no” vote, so won’t matter from the point of view of hitting the 50 per cent threshold. But if they are indicative of the voting trends among the estimated 7,000 retail shareholders who hold their shares directly and can vote individually, the deal would be in serious trouble. Some may be gambling that Anglo will sweeten the deal. They will be in for a rude awakening if the FTSE 100 group allows the deal to fail and buys Sirius out of administration instead.
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