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I have just read Appendix7 of The Takeover Code on Schemes of Arrangement - all quite complex. But it does lay out timeframes so it looks like it would take at least 3months. It looks like it is the fast Tracy route to getting 100% control.

The main steps are - go to court agreement for the scheme then arrange a shareholder meeting. . Must get 75% of of the acceptances at this meeting and if so game over and all will be paid 620p on the takeover date. Not sure what happens if 75% is not obtained, but one option is that the Scheme lapses and they would need to start again. It does not seem possible to have a counter offer once sanctioned by then court.

This differs from a more usual, in my experience, with Contractural Offers where only 50% is required to become unconditional at the shareholder’s meeting, and then the buying company would have to haggle with the remaining shareholders until they have 90% after which sale is compulsory. This can take a long time.

Ok it is a Scheme of Arrangement so 75% it is. Not so good for hanging in there to get an inducement.

I looked up on the threshold for compulsory purchases in a take-over.

There are two types Contractural , where threshold is 90 % and Scheme of Arrangement, wherei it is indeed.d 75%. Need to look to see what type of takeover this is.

Anyway take -over companies don’t like minority shareholders and they will offer inducements over and above the offer price if the threshold is not met.

HG This is a copy from a UK legal firm. I am open to correction if this is wrong. I also recall when Cadbury was taken over it was 90%.

‘A compulsory acquisition of shares (or a 'squeeze-out' of minority shareholders) occurs where a bidder in a takeover for a company has: the acceptance of at least 90% of shares; and. 90% of the voting rights in the company it is trying to buy.”

The listing will not cease until there is 90% acceptance. When Cadbury was acquired, those of us not choosing to sell were offered an extra 5%, if memory serves, to get rid of us until the 90% threshold was reached.

In87. If more tan 50% of SHs accept, then the deal is done and the new owner will control the company. If you don’t vote, or vote against, you can hold onto your shares. You may then be offered a slightly higher price as a sweetener to tempt you to sell. When 90% have accepted your sale becomes compulsory at the offer price.

Didi888. The shareholders own the company so they will have the right to vote, and if 50% vote yes it becomes on conditional and it is over. This voting no will be paid the offer price.

Reading the RnS, it seems to me the. BOD is, and always has been, doing what i may be good for the company and not what is in the long term good for the owners. The primary purpose of any BoD is to look after the interests of the owners. oif 620p in is their interests, so be it, but I disagree.

HKK - I take my hat off to you for being right in your prediction of a take-over and the price. well done.

But I will vote against - but most will take the money and run.

HKK I’m not sure that using current metrics to compare valuations with competitive companies is all that informative if you don’t take the respective growth rates into account. Even small difference in grow rates, when compounded into the future, make a big difference. And the growth rates of DT and CRWD and S. are different.

Most brokers will be taking a view on where these growth rates are going, and using DCF analysis to come to a valuation. it is of no surprise that there is a large spread in these valuations. I would put more credence on the average broker values you gave, than using comparison of current AAR numbers.

Personally I think the valuations of CRWD and the like are in bubble territory.

Cr888 I am one of the idiots who sold out some of my holdings earlier last year for a small profit. This idiot invested the proceeds in Nvidia currently 150% or so up on my purchase price vs DT currently up 40% on my sales price. So sometimes it is good to be an idiot.

I remain a strong believer in a buy and hold strateg and I still hold DT shares, but when opportunity knocks …………

BS Question - If you built up your position by “price cost averaging” why do you “I lament the lows”? Surely, if you want to build up a position in a business for a long term hold, I would have thought, you would want to celebrate the lows - at least while building up that position by price cost averaging.

Here HKK one for your list. In The Times today:

“Darktrace, the cybersecurity business, rose 17¾p, or 3.9 per cent, to 476¼p after Bank of America upgraded it to “buy”. Analysts at the bank said improvements at the Cambridge-based company had given them confidence in its continued growth.”

SW77 you raise an interesting point - investing is about both about wealth creation and wealth preservation (if you have some wealth) and my portfolio is split between the two. And W, you are right about Black Swan events.

To protect my wealth, about half is invested in trackers. For growth, I once had about 30 stocks - far too many to fully understand and follow so I am now aiming to hold no more than 10 quality companies, Microsoft being my favouri long held company, along with REL in the UK. I’m not smart, or brave, enough to whittle it down to 4.

DT, together with some exploration stocks, form part of my limited speculative portfolio - buying into them with the initial expectation that they could become 10 baggers in a reasonable time frame. I no longer think DT has any chance of meeting this expectation, but it could still be a worthwhile investment if performance improves.

It has been an interesting journey investing in DT, and I have learned a lot holding it. First time I came across negative working capital - fancy your customers bank rolling your business and not having to borrow money from a bank! No debts to a bank, only to your customers!

Ok - each to their own. I prefer now to only invest in companies in which I have a deep fundamental understanding, and in which I have sought to build up my own competence to be able to assess itheir long term competitive advantage.

I, too, used to think that diversification was a good thing, but now I prefer to invest in only a few companies that have proven sustainable competitive advantage - very few have - and which I understand. Buffett recons you only need very few, and I now tend now to agree.

Always a surprise to me that people invest in companies/businesses they know so little fundamentally about. But, I suppose, if you are a trader or speculator you don’t need to know. The whole financial strength of DT depends on it providing SaaS and being paid up-front by subscription.

Welcome to the board. C700. A different slant on any issue is healthy.. Thanks for your comment.

In the end it is our decision after a recommendation from the BoD - and then only after a deal is negotiated by executive management or, if hostile, directly. We own the company after all - as does Poppy as a shareholder too. Apart from agreeing or otherwise to director nominations, and the payment of dividends or share buy-backs, it is one of the few rights we have. Very few of us exercise that right.

Straightaim - yes net ARR added, expressed as a %age, is the second derivative of AAR- rate of change of the rate of change of ARR- (or the rate of change of the growth rate.) This was slowing (decelerating) but is now now increasing (accelerating) although way behind the 27% being achieved by Crowdstrike. This makes simple comparisons of value so problematic as most of the intrinsic value is from future free cash flows. Projecting forward a 5% growth rate vs one of 27% is quite marked.

The problem DARK currently has is with the rate of growth of new customers as the growth rate has been declining since IPO impacting the net AAR added figure. Current growth of ARR/Revenue has depended to a significant extent on up-selling add-ons (see RNS).

They gave reorganised their sales forrce so the hope is that this will continue to improve.

K - this is an auction, (UT), and, as in any auction, there are usually many buyers buyers and sellers. But in the end 392785 shares will have been bought and an equal number sold. Basically if there are more wanting to buy, than those wanting to sell at a given price - hence driving the agenda -it will be classified as a buy. And visa versa. I don’t think the auction numbers are included in the daily volumes/.

The arithmetic. Is number of shares 392785 * price in pounds 4.361 = 2m. If more than a million the value is always rounded to the nearest million.

UT means an Uncrossing Trade (auction). O means a trade with a MM. A means an automated trade through SETS .

Volumes are not what they seem. One share bought and then sold by a MM counts as a volume of 2. One share bought and matched with a sell in SETS counts as only 1. Crazy but there it is.

SW77 - Surprised you quote Jessie Livermore. Wasn’t he a day trader using technical analysis and shorting strategies -the very antithesis of Buffett’s approach. Mr Market is often wrong - is that not what creates opportunity to buy a slice of a business cheaply - or exit at crazily high prices.