Exit offer: when fair is foul and foul is fair

VARD Holdings on Monday posted the notice for its upcoming extraordinary general meeting (EGM), to be held on July 24, at which its shareholders will vote on the voluntary delisting of the shipbuilder from the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the exit offer made to them.

This EGM is a rerun, after the earlier one in April caused a kerfuffle among shareholders and consternation on the part of SGX's regulatory arm (SGX RegCo) owing to errors in the circular and concerns about the way the meeting had been carried out.

With those issues having since been addressed, this column intends to focus instead on another aspect of the exit offer made to Vard's shareholders - specifically, the fact that the offer has been deemed "not fair but reasonable", with the seemingly conflicting terms giving rise to some degree of confusion amongst Vard's shareholders, in particular, and retail investors, in general.