Macquarie Telecom has failed in its effort to have the Takeovers Panel force Bulletproof to commission a new independent expert’s report assessing MacTel’s acquisition offer for the cloud services company.
MacTel’s cloud arm is offering $0.11 per share for the Bulletproof voting shares that it doesn’t already hold.
The company in January lodged an application with the Takeovers Panel in response to a target’s statement released by Bulletproof.
A committee of independent Bulletproof board directors has unanimously recommended that MacTel offer be rejected — a position backed by the independent expert’s report prepared for shareholders.
“The Panel was satisfied that there was no reasonable prospect it would make a declaration of unacceptable circumstances in relation to the independent expert’s report,” a statement released today by the Takeovers Panel said.
“The Panel considered that [Macquarie Telecom’s] criticisms of the independent expert’s report did not go beyond matters of judgement in respect of which experts might reasonably disagree, and noted that it was open to the applicant to set out its critique in a supplementary bidder’s statement
“The Panel conducted proceedings in respect of the applicant’s submission that the target’s statement did not include all information that holders of Bulletproof shares and their professional advisers would reasonably require to make an informed assessment whether to accept the applicant’s takeover bid, however was satisfied with the further information provided by the parties.”
Macquarie had argued that the target’s statement prepared by Bulletproof was misleading and unbalanced.
Bulletproof in January confirmed that “a number of parties” have indicated an interest in acquiring it, including AC3.