The failure of a recommended buyout is so rare that it looks as if we will be in uncharted territory after Amstrad Plc’s shareholders meeting on Thursday called to approve Alan Sugar’s 30 pence a share offer to take the company private if, as is now almost universally expected, sharholders reject the offer; Sugar needs 75% of the shares he does not own to be voted in favour of the offer, and also needs a simple majority of all holders, regardless of the number of shares they speak for, to back his offer, and looks likely to fail on both counts now. The one thing that might swing the vote in favour of Alan Sugar is a collapse of the share price on the expectation that it will fail: yesterday, shares in Amstrad Plc fell fourpence to 24 pence after the speculation that Sugar will fail in his attempt at a buyout.
