UPDATE: Jay Z’s Bid To Buy Aspiro’s WiMP & Tidal Music Services Is Not Dead Yet
[UPDATED] Jay Z's bid to buy a pair of Scandinavian based streaming music services for $56 million has hit a snag as 10% of shareholders demand a better deal.
As we reported a week ago, a group of 120 Aspiro shareholders have banned together to challenge Jay Z's $56 million bid to buy streaming music services WiMP and Tidal. "A consistent view of all registered shareholders is that they believe that the bid is bad and not sufficiently value the company's potential," the shareholders said in a statement.
Because the group represents 10% of all shareholders, Jay Z must now reframe his bid and purchase just 90% of the company, improve his bid to all shareholders, or withdraw the offer entirely.
"The bidder has not reacted, either by withdrawing the bid, raising the offer or lowering" the percentage sought, the Swedish Shareholders' Association said in a statement.
UPDATE:
Jay Z's bid to buy Aspiro is still very much alive according to Fredrik Bjørland, the chairman of the Aspiro’s independent board committee, who said in this statement released via TNW.
“As you probably know, the independent board committee has made a thorough evaluation of the bid from Project Panther, assisted by an external fairness opinion by ABG Sundal Collier and following a structured process. We still believe the offer is attractive for both the company and its shareholders, and recommend the offer based on this.
We further note that Aktiespararna’s recommendation to not accept the offer is primarily based on an argument that more than 10% will reject the offer and a potentially raised bid by Project Panther. This is a bit surprising, as to my experience, we have neither a confirmation that more than 10% will reject the offer (as we are still within the acceptance period until March 11th) nor that Project Panther is willing to raise its bid or engage in direct negotiations with the minority shareholders.
In my opinion, the recommendation to not accept the offer involves high risk, as it is well known that Aspiro is currently unprofitable and in need of capital within 12 months, and the current majority shareholder has indicated it is not willing to support this capital need. We thus believe accepting a 60% bid premium is a far better risk/reward recommendation.”
