Last week the Delaware Supreme Court’s en banc hearing in the CKx case resulted in a simple affirmance, without opinion, of the Chancery Court’s 2013 decision that the merger price in this particular case was the best proxy for the fair value of petitioners’ stock. In CKx, the Chancery Court had rejected the valuation methodologies presented by both sides and yet also failed to consider any other valuation approach, pointing instead to the price paid by the acquirer as the most reliable indicator of fair value given its finding that the merger price was the product of a fulsome and robust auction process. The Supreme Court also rejected the company’s request to set fair value below the merger price after taking out supposed synergistic gains that the acquirer had planned to capture from the merger entity (to which post-merger synergies dissenting stockholders are not entitled by statute). Likewise, the Supreme Court rejected the company’s cross-appeal challenging the full award of statutory interest at 5.75%, affirming Chancery’s ruling that it had no authority under the appraisal statute to permit the respondent to compel the petitioners to accept a partial pre-payment of the award that would cut off the accrual of interest.
As reported by Reuters, if you read the Supreme Court order in CKx as setting the market price as a floor in appraisal litigation, rather than a ceiling, and after taking the statutory interest award into account, the decision may ultimately incentivize appraisal arbitrage for big investors.
**Note: this law firm is of counsel to the appellant-petitioner shareholders in CKx.