Friday 20 August 2010

Standard Life response to Takeover Panel review

Is available here. Not surprising, but they are opposed to the two more 'political' proposals - raising the threshold required for a bid to go through, and/or introducing a qualifying period for voting rights (so if you acquire shares once a bid has been announced you can't vote them).

Standard Life are generally a good bellwether of mainstream investor views, and, as I have said before, I don't expect to see any significant change resulting from the Panel's review. Whether this is a sensible approach or a cop-out is up to you. This doesn't stop Vince Cable from approaching M&A from a public policy perspective either.

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