The following excerpt is from an article published in the December 19, 2012 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.
Provo-based Ancestry.com complied Wednesday with the order of a Delaware judge and filed additional information ahead of a Dec. 27 stockholder vote on the $1.6 billion acquisition of the genealogy website by a group led by European private equity firm Permira Advisers.
Chancellor Leo Strine Jr. earlier this week ordered that Ancestry.com shareholders be told about the reluctance of the company’s financial adviser to issue an opinion on the fairness of the deal based on May financial projections. Shareholders also must be told about a deal-protection measure put into place after Permira submitted its winning bid that prevented other bidders from submitting a better offer, the judge said.
Neither of those details was included in the proxy statement sent to shareholders of the Utah company. But on Wednesday, the company filed the additional information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
After the suit was filed, the company’s general counsel sent potential bidders a letter that clears the way for them to offer higher bids if they so chose, the company said in its SEC filing.
Strine, however, declined to block the Dec. 27 vote as requested by dissident shareholders, which attorneys suggested could be affected by higher taxes next year.
Ancestry.com attorney William Savitt said shareholders “will almost certainly be better off getting their premium money this year rather than next.”
