RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Q3 FCFI'm not arguing that all shareholders are not being treated equal. What I'm saying is what they are doing is ultimately leading to a privatization. The 3 largest shareholders don't trade their shares on the open market. The NCIB portion of the buy backs are on the open market which means they are reducing the number of minority shares outstanding (thereby increasing the ownership % of the 3 largest shareholders). They are buying the 25% from every shareholder, equally, at an arbitrary price. If they were to announce that they were taking the company private they would have to offer a premium to entice people to sell. The way they are doing it now is setting a below market price and reducing the number of outstanding shares. When they do take it private, the number of shares they will have to pay a premium on will be greatly reduced thereby saving the private owners a pile of money.
And, they are issuing more shares in stock options internally which means management will retain more ownership and therefore benefit when it is privatized.
They also know that going forward this company will be a cash cow. Instead of paying the current shareholders healthy dividends, which would drive up the share price as well, they are using the cash to quietly privatize the company without saying so.
Maybe it's legal, but morally it is so so wrong.
Cheers.