Member Info for Lingfield

The first threshold would be 10% to call an EGM, that would give the proposal airtime and perhaps persuade the Board to take action on its own - this is not a particularly high threshold. I would be VERY surprised if 10% of the shareholders do not agree with this and support could not be obtained.

As a minimum the Board should ensure that the investment managers fee is linked to the SP not the NAV. Anyone up for trying to force this change?

Government consultation closes tomorrow and the Government has 12 weeks to respond. If the Government turn this around promptly then you could see them responding in January. Any potential deal is going to wait until his is settled. It is hard to see how anything could be achieved before this decision is announced.

If there are no potential options the company will close down the FSP. IMO the window for the company to take that step has just opened and given that they have not should be taken as a positive sign.

The deal will be done on or around NAV/pipeline etc with an appropriate discount OR will not be done at all. The later I suspect is what is keeping the SP down.

It was unlikely that we would receive an update in the first month. They would be trying to determine the list of potential acquirers/partners, etc.. Assuming they have one or more potential buyers, then they need to land on a price and payment terms. This is not a straightforward process particularly given the Govt consultation is still outstanding in relation to indexation and potential issues re: sale of the investment manager alongside the investment company. My guess is that we will need resolution of the Govt consultation before there is a meaningful update. On the plus side, there maybe an interest rate cut this month which should make this more attractive.

I would expect some sort of update before the end of the second or third month.

Too much pessimism. The IBs would not have taken this on unless they thought that they could get this away - they only get paid if it sells.

We will find out within 5-8 weeks of the announcement date if there are no buyers. If there is no news after this period, it means discussions are being held but that does not guarantee an exit. FSPs have a circa 20% success rate, but we should not read too much into this.

It all comes down to one number- NAV! The board will only be able to recommend an offer which is at a sensible discount to NAV. West Yorkshire PF hold circa 5% and bought in at circa 85p recently so that is probably indicative of the minimum acceptable price, but they will want more.