401–410 of 1001 posts
It's more like an insurance policy, it doesn't mean they're not going to sell if the offer is attractive enough.
Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.
Read some Matt Levine, he's way more articulate and makes finance quite fun. But if I were to take a stab at it: The market has been so weird recently that stock splits - which according to previous theoretical belief do not create shareholder value - have in fact increased the share price for extended periods. So issuing stock for whatever reason (high price, poison pill) could be seen as shareholder maximizing. One…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can always do that, by just issuing more shares. In fact, if you buy X shares, the percentage of the company you own could well decline over time. Or increase, in the case of stock buybacks.
Are there guardrails on this? This comment makes it sound like the board can print their own money.
If you've ever wondered why corporations have authorized and issued shares, there you go. Increasing the authorized share count requires a shareholder vote. Issuing shares under that cap does not. When shareholders increase the number of authorized shares, they are delegating that decision making to the Board.
It wasn't always like this. But as finance sped up, particularly towards the end of the 19th century, a railroad company which had to hold a shareholder vote to raise emergency equity because their free banking deposits in Nevada went bust would find itself systematically outmaneuvered by the ones who had pre-approval to plug the hole. As a result, most corporations now authorize the maximum number of shares reasonably possible, in almost all cases only moderated by some states' franchise taxes varying by number of shares.
Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.
Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.
Are you going to sell? If not, why not?
I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right? Vanguard, for example, has just had its range of further investment lim…
If I was a member of Twitter's board, Musk's history of erratic public behavior, SEC settlement, and openly hostile attitude towards the company's employees would be more than sufficient to justify my belief that his controlling ownership would not be in the interest of the current average shareholder. That opinion would also be consistent with how "fiduciary duty" is interpreted by US regulators: companies are not r…
How are poison pills legal? If the board can make arbitrary rules can’t they just zero out Musks or anyone else’s shares right now? Or say “Anyone with the last name of Musk now owns type D share with 1/100th ownership value”. Poison pills seems pretty close to doing just that.
From ArsTechnica: “Even before Friday, Twitter had bylaws that "could have the effect of rendering more difficult, delaying, or preventing an acquisition deemed undesirable by our board of directors," the company said in a February 2022 SEC filing. That includes "a classified board of directors whose members serve staggered three-year terms," and the ability to "authoriz[e] 'blank check' preferred stock, which could…
Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.
Not really, as a counter argument, there is every reason to believe that Musk will make a mockery of twitter and run it into the ground. A social media platform with a lot of responsibility is not for someone as egotistical as Musk. If Zuckerberg is bad, Musk could be catastrophic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really, as a counter argument, there is every reason to believe that Musk will make a mockery of twitter and run it into the ground. A social media platform with a lot of responsibility is not for someone as egotistical as Musk. If Zuckerberg is bad, Musk could be catastrophic.
The shareholders no longer care what happens to Twitter once they are shareholders no longer. (Except insofar as they are Twitter users.)