PCCW (0008) – privatisation passed
PCCW (0008) is the focus company among all HK-listed companies today:
The shareholders have approved the privatisation plan, despite the claim from David Webb that there is some vote-rigging involved (http://www.webb-site.com/articles/pccwrig.htm) in which David Webb claimed that hundreds of Fortis insurance sales agents received one lot (1000 shares) of PCCW recently and in return they would need to sign the proxy form to be in favour of the privatisation. With this privatisaion, shareholders will receive HKD 4.5 per share.
In the shareholder meeting, there were some minority shareholders who asked to delay the vote on privatisation until the investigation of vote-rigging is finished by the SFC. Not surprisingly, this was voted down.
On another front, the PCCW labour union (PCCW Employees General Union) has reported that PCCW will cut 5% of the workforce (600 people) and the rest of the employees will have their work week shortened from five / five and a half days to four days (and thus their pay is reduced).
Finally the privatisation saga has more or less come to an end. Personally, I believe this is a decent deal for the shareholders: most of the minority shareholders don’t mind approving this privatisation actually: a lot of them probably have held their shares since the dot com era (the peak split-adjusted share price was HK$ 131.75). The net asset value of PCCW is probably a lot higher than the amount paid for the privatisation; but at this time of the market, shareholders probably don’t mind exchange their shares for cash (and with a small premium to current share price too!)
