Bye-bye birdie: Canary Wharf owner Songbird Estates will de-list from AIM after Qatar Brookfield takeover
Canary Wharf owner Songbird Estates will delist from the AIM after submitting to a hostile £2.6bn takeover by Qatari and Canadian funds.
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Canadian property firm Brookfield will take Songbird private, forcing a compulsory acquisition of the remaining minority shares from investors who have not agreed with the deal.
Investors representing 99.4 per cent of shareholders finally submitted to the bid at the beginning of March after three of Songbird's biggest shareholders – Glick, China Investment Corporation and a fund managed by Morgan Stanley representing 28.6 per cent stake – acquiesced to the offer which the board believed undervalued the firm.
"Unless any of the Songbird shareholders who have not accepted the Songbird offer and who do not accept the Songbird offer before it closes apply to the court and the court orders otherwise, on the expiry of six weeks from the date of the Songbird Compulsory Acquisition Notices, being 16 April 2015, the Songbird shares held by those Songbird shareholders who have not accepted the offer will be acquired compulsorily by Bidco on the same terms as the Songbird offer," the company said in an update.
It's expected shares will end trading on 23 April.
QIA submitted a compulsory notice on Songbird shares and those of Canary Wharf Group, the private company which owns Canary Wharf in which Songbird holds a 69 per cent stake, on 5 March.