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Very positive comment's on results from CEO on 6th november:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4839085-national-grid-plc-ngg-q2-2026-earnings-call-transcript

Market jittery regarding AI stocks, there's a lot of money moving into defensive stocks.

Newdealz, I missed the date to accept the offer (on holiday), and still hold 227 certified shares from the IPO. Called Equiniti which has an IDS helpline. I was told I can still send the original acceptance form in and it will be accepted, which is an £840 relief.

It's been fun in a masochistic sort of way, but too much flagellation is bad for the soul. Glad to depart with a decent profit and enjoy the summer.

Thanks to all on this board who have made it such an interesting time and good wishes to you all. I'm sure that all will agree Hounddog receives a special mention for the amount of time he has spent helping people like me navigate through the compexities of the takeover.

Interim dividend declared at 15.84p. Ex-div 21 Nov 2024, pay date 14th jan, 2025.

Houndog, another great post clarifying how the process will play out. I found this part of your post particularly helpful:

"At this point the current timeline (where Day 60 is currently 25 August) will almost certainly be suspended and timings pushed back until clearances are obtained (if indeed they are). Once clearances have been dealt with there will be a revised final date for acceptances. Whatever happens there will be 14 days notice of the final date for acceptances."

It's probable that day 60 will come sometime next year, and we will go through several more sets of quarterly results including a strike free christmas period before the Institutions commit their vote. I thought Q1 results were very good and if Q2, Q3 results build on this then Kretinsky may well struggle to persuade the institutions to sell up. Still a lot to chew on here!

Isle, labour intend to build 1.5 million new homes which, doing the maths, is 1.5 million new addresses. Fewer and fewer letters, delivered to a huge increase in new properties. Surely this is the straw that will break the back of the USO in it's current form?

The choices are to be pragmatic and adjust the USO or hike stamp prices again. Either way, the sheer number of new addresses will significantly eat into any anticipated savings. In a sane world the regulator's decision re the USO, would now have been made.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge Hounddog, providing document navigation with relevant page numbers is very decent of you.

Darbo, could it void Kretinskys proposed takeover? Doubt it, but the irony...

Hounddog, just reread your posts and this line caught my attention; "If you accept the offer then you are contractually bound to sell your shares to DK".

From this I am assuming that upon my acceptance I'd no longer have the freedom I currently enjoy to trade my shares as and when I choose? Also on the other hand, if I don't vote to accept could I potentially end up in a no mans land where I hold shares in a company in which I am receiving no issue of dividends, and which I possibly can't sell?

Kretinsky setting the bar at 75% makes it far more likely the vote will pass. What is the pool from which the 75% comes from? Would it be 75% of votes cast and excluding Kreinsky's 27% holding?

All of the larger investors will have different average prices for their holdings. Being an IDS shareholder has often been tortuous, with the causes of it's many lows and highs often seemingly inexplicable.

Ignoring the covid anomaly, October 2018 was the last time the sp was anywhere near the offer price. Many of the larger investors will have built their stake after 2018 and will be seeing this as a happy windfall and an opportunity to bank a very healthy return which in normal times would take a long time to achieve. Take the windfall, reinvest elsewhere.

In the offer document in the final pages UNITE are positive to the takeover, however as the managers union one would expect them to be pragmatic rather than idealistic. Also it appears the CWU seem to have become more pragmatic to real world conditions after the existential damage done by prolonged targeted industrial action became apparent. I don't believe Kretinsky has rejected profit sharing, indeed, although I don't have the citation, I believe he is on record as saying it could happen.

For me the possible big hurdle is the National Security legislation. Kretinsky's stake building has been scrutinised against this legislation when he got to 25%, and he was given the ok. We will almost certainly have a new labour government next week. Starmer will want the CWU no closer than arms length. Distorting the market process by vetoing the takeover could become very untidy for him, and give a poor signal to UK financial markets which are already suffering.

Well, thanks in advance Hounddog if you able to clarify my questions, just hoping to defuse some of the mines that could go off before I step on them.

Excellent post Hounddog, wrapping the detail of all the if's, but's and maybe's into a concise and intelligible explanation for the journeyman holder. Most grateful for the time you spent doing this, there is an awful lot of documentation to wade through to get to the nub of it all. Cheers.

The vote, and govt. scrutiny are both considered risks since a failure of either of theses two conditions would derail the bid. Hence sp is currently 320p and not 370p

Ade the deal isn't quite done yet. The shareholders have to vote to accept Kretinskys offer of 370p per share. This part of the takeover process is happening now and is why you as a shareholder of IDS have received a voting form.

If the offer is accepted by shareholders there is still one more hoop. This involves the government scrutinising the bid against National Security legislation because Royal Mail is considered be important for the nations communications network.

That is it in a nutshell. I have only had a quick scan of the voting form, so can't comment too much on it. However the guidance that comes with the from does point you in the right direction and the process you follow will depend on whether you are a certified or non-certified shareholder.

Thin trading, but still 4x more shares bought than sold, sp moving down.

Oligarch, Time2kill, and others have mentioned that end of June is the deadline for Kretensky to increase his bid if he feels he needs to sweeten the deal and move the vote % further in his direction. Not entirely clear on this Shinyfings and would appreciate it if anyone is able to clarify if this is indeed the case.

Just had a quick scan of Kretinskys 29th May RNS offer document, I would think there would be more info there. I seem to remember 1month after the release of the aforementioned offer was significant in this case, but don't have much time at moment to have a thorough look.

I think you are correct re the vote, but the takeover will still not be unconditional until if/when the govt. has considered the National Security legislation to the takeover.

Oli, hard to divine where Kretinskys line in the sand is. He seems to have acquiesced to all the concessions that have been asked of him, including giving a stake to the workers. He's already 27% into IDS which I would call a strong sign of commitment.

All the signs are that he still really, really wants to own IDS. The CWU seem to have softened to the idea of Kretinsky owning IDS, but also want a say in the way the company is ran. That might be too much for kretinsky, but as I said in a previous post the CEO Seidenberg is a German and in Germany the unions do have more of a say in how businesses are ran, so facilitating this will not be too much of a shock.

Concessions however cost money, and at some point you would think Kretinsky would be asked to go a place he doesn't want to be. He will have spent the current hiatus talking to the larger investors and finding out what the price will be to get the % required to carry the vote. Every 10p increase will cost about £65m. He is a very wealthy man who wants IDS very much indeed. He will probably need to up his bid; would 400p do it? If Kretinsky was told by the II's that 400p would get enough votes to carry it, I think he would up his bid by the requisite 30p at a cost of £200m to himself.

What's your guess?

Oli, Kretinsky was supposed to be meeting Badenoch the business secretary in the middle of last week. Unsure whether it actually happened, but I can't find any news about it. Perhaps the irrelevance of such a meeting sank in with Kemi. As for Braverman, i think she was last sighted somewhere near the north pole.

Red, I was referring to the possibility of numerous shorts of 5%. At the moment I think the new disclosed short is at about .9%, which to me is an opportunity rather than a sign of impending existential disaster that a short position of say 15% would be.

A number of shorters above 5%!?. Then it really would be time to fly the white flag and head for the hills.

Red, that's one declared shorter. There will be other undeclared shorts less than .5%. Anyone selling when the short was announced could buy back today and be 10p up per share.

Last line should read: "so that workers can have a stronger voice in the governance and strategic direction of the company", those subs buy the CWU a lot of influence with labour. However, relationship between unions and management is closer in Germany, so unions having more of a voice won't be a new thing for Seidenberg. What may be different is that German unions are more pragmatic compared to a Dave Ward led CWU.

I wonder how Kretinsky will measure the risk of recent events. He's talking with Badenoch this week, which will most likely be irrelevant.

Also the compensation for abuse of market position claim from Whistl has raised it's head again. IDS seem to be discounting the claim, but it may have merit since Royal Mail have had a court case go against them on this.

Derek, would the possible takeover of IDS be important enough to get into the manifesto? Probably, but only because there are tens of thousands of CWU members working for them.

Also in the news is that kemi Badenoch has a meeting provisionally scheduled with Kretinsky in the middle of next week where they will hold talks.