In case anyone is interested, DEC is making a shareholder rights issue that would be triggered by a hostile bidder buying more than about 20% of the shares, in which case other holders would have rights to buy additional DEC shares at preferential prices, flooding the market with the shares and making the aggressor’s task harder and more expensive: since the majority of computer companies in the US now have such plans in place – in many cases companies where it is hard to imagine anyone wanting to buy them! – and since this particular type of poison pill has never actually been activated in any hostile takeover bid, we don’t usually trouble readers with any new ones.
