The sale of Telent, the services business of former telecoms firm Marconi, to US investment firm Fortress Investment has hit a hurdle with one major shareholder threatening to vote against the sale.
A meeting of the shareholders to approve the sale was adjourned last month when reluctant voter Polygon Investment Partners, which holds almost 24 per cent of Telent, indicated to the management of Telent that it intended to vote against the relevant resolutions.
“If Polygon had voted its shares against the resolutions then the offer would have failed,” said Telent.
A new meeting is due to take place on Friday this week but the outcome is still far from clear. The Board of Telent has said it will not adjourn the meeting again without decision, so the matter should be resolved one way or the other this week.
The Telent Board has unanimously recommended the offer from Fortress, which values the firm at around £346m, and to date over 40% of Telent’s shares had been voted via proxies and over 99.9% of these proxies had been voted in favour of the offer.
Telent has held discussions with representatives of investor Polygon in an attempt to resolve the issue. It seems that Polygon has questioned the value of the sale and may be interested in its participation in a consortium formed to acquire Telent. “These discussions have not resulted in any feasible proposal,” said Telent.