Free gift for the forum....

http://www.fatpitchfinancials.com/go...-transactions/

[Sniper]

Considering the general knowledge level of those reading this forums, it might be useful and prudent for you to suggest how to use the information presented [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

going private transaction is where it better for the company to go private than to stay public, so to achieve this they do a rev split followed by foward split of the same size to get rid of share holders holding less than the split size, the ones removed our offered a tender amount. Like the last the one I did was ASBP where it was 300:1 so hold 300 shares you get the difference between the tender price and the price you bought. For me it was around $1/share profit, pretty much risk free over 4 accts(1200 shares)

[Martin]

Like merger arbitrage. I've played a few mergers over the years and it's quite profitable.

fflaque what's your average holding time on this type of thing?

[DesertCat]

[ QUOTE ]
going private transaction is where it better for the company to go private than to stay public, so to achieve this they do a rev split followed by foward split of the same size to get rid of share holders holding less than the split size, the ones removed our offered a tender amount. Like the last the one I did was ASBP where it was 300:1 so hold 300 shares you get the difference between the tender price and the price you bought. For me it was around $1/share profit, pretty much risk free over 4 accts(1200 shares)

[/ QUOTE ]

These transactions are far from risk free. There are groups of investors on the internet (besides the site you linked to) tracking these opportunities.

This creates a problem. The company does an analysis that says, at price X, and with Y small shareholders (those holding less than the split number of shares) their cost will be X*Y. But once they announce, the going private cost becomes X*(Y+Z) where Z is the number of arbitragers who've jumped in. And like the OP, most of these arbitragers open multiple acounts to try to double or triple dip. I have on friend who's opened something like 50 accounts for going private deals.

So when the company recalculates the cost with all the new "free riders" included, they realize their cashout costs just doubled or tripled. Way too often, they cancel the transaction.

Examples include SNET, GCFC, and KMG (which was actually a tender where odd lots were supposed to be taken 100%).

If you want to do these deals you should think defensively. Try to do ten or so at a time, so that one or two blowups won't kill you. Only take on deals where the company has financial resources to to the split, even if the cost goes up. Avoid struggling companies with weak balance sheets.

thats why you have to read the filings to make sure that management can't cancel the split. I say probably around half of them management has provisions to stop the split if it gets to a certain level of investors that are cashed out.....also a majority of these are banks where the float is small so not to many people can play it before it reaches the tender price presplit therefore making it an unprofitable transaction for the retail guy.

[CardMinger]

fflaque,

Sorry but I have a few questions about how this works.

In the deal you spoke of I see that the "Tender Limit" was 300 shares. What would happen if you owned 301 shares?

Also what would happen if you owned 299?

Thanks and sorry for being a n00b. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Kevin

[Martin]

A Motley Fool Article on this subject.