Wall Street clearly isn’t expecting anything to happen today at Emmis Communications, even though the repeatedly extended tender offers are again set to expire at 5:00 pm ET Friday and the repeatedly adjourned shareholders meeting is again set to convene at 6:30 pm. With the company’s stock trading near two bucks, well below the proposed $2.40 buyout by CEO Jeff Smulyan, stock traders are clearly expecting yet another extension.
To recap: Smulyan has been negotiating for weeks with the Preferred Shareholders Lock-Up Group which holds over 38% of Emmis’ preferred shares – enough to block the required two-thirds vote by preferred holders for legal amendments related to the effort to take Emmis private. They are holding out for something other than the 60% of face value in new bonds proposed by Smulyan and his financial backer, Alden Global Capital.
Because of that standoff with the preferred shareholders group, the meeting for shareholders to vote on various amendments needed for the going private transactions has been adjourned for lack of a quorum three times, most recently on August 13th.
