Professor John Coates has a new paper titled Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructuring: Types, Regulation, and Patterns of Practice that is available on SSRN. The abstract is as follows: An important component of corporate governance is the regulation of significant transactions – mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring. This paper (a chapter in Oxford Handbook on Corporate Law and Governance...
“Inversion” Takeovers
Standard treatises on mergers & acquisitions (M&A) contain the usual benefits or rationale for why a company would take over another. These include growth, size, synergies, and so on. One of the significant benefits of takeovers could also be tax synergies such as setting off the losses of one company against the losses of another. Similar benefits may be available with respect to...
Financing Domestic M&A
A Times of India report indicates that the Finance Ministry is considering a proposal to allow banks to finance domestic M&A, i.e. acquisitions of local targets by local acquirers. If this proposal goes through (although significant doubts have been raised regarding that), it will mark a sea-change in the funding of domestic M&A that is currently deprived of bank funding. At present...
Proposal to Overhaul Delisting Regime
Delisting of companies from the stock exchange (also known as privatization) has become a common phenomenon around the world, as it has in India. The rationale for delisting a company is detailed below: A number of reasons are proffered as motivations for delisting. Where there is a perception that the market price of the company is not reflective of the true value of its businesses, share price...
Regulatory Domain over M&A for NBFCs
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a notification relating to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) involving non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). This now brings most M&As relating to NBFCs within the regulatory domain of the RBI thereby requiring its prior approval. The following types of transactions fall within the RBI approval requirement: 1...
SEBI Order on “Control” Under Takeover Regulations
Background and Facts Last week, SEBI passed its order in the Jet-Etihad case relating to whether the investment by Etihad Airways in 24% shares of Jet Airways (India) Limited and the terms thereof amount to Etihad obtaining “control” in Jet so as to require Etihad to make a mandatory open offer under the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 2011 (the Takeover...
Supreme Court on the Sanctity of a Takeover Offer
Background and Facts Last month, the Supreme Court had the occasion in SEBI v. Akshya Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. to consider the narrow question of the whether “an open offer voluntarily made through a Public Announcement for purchase of shares of the target company can be permitted to be withdrawn at a time when the voluntary open offer has become uneconomical to be performed”, which it answered...
Further Tax Scrutiny of Mergers
In the last few years, mergers of companies (undertaken through schemes of arrangement that require the approval of the High Court) have been subject to greater scrutiny by the tax authorities. One example of a merger that was strongly objected to by the tax authorities is the case involving Vodafone Essar Gujarat Limited (discussed here), although the scheme was sanctioned on appeal to a...
Guest Post: CCI Amends Merger Control Regulations
[The following post is contributed by Karan Singh Chandhiok, Head of Competition Law and Dispute Resolution, Chandhiok & Associates, Advocates and Solicitors; and Vikram Sobti, Senior Associate with the firm. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] and [email protected] respectively] On 28 March 2014, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) issued a...
Delaware Standard for Controlled Company Mergers
Delaware courts have long been considering disputes pertaining to mergers between companies and their controlling shareholders. Not only do such mergers involve related party transactions but they are also used as a means to squeeze out the minority shareholders of the target who are cashed out as part of the merger. In one of the first decisions that permitted minority shareholders to bring...
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