Shareholders slow to sign up to approve Paladin Enegy bid for Fission Uranium

Paladin Energy has bid $1.3bn for Fission Uranium.

Paladin Energy’s $1.3bn acquisition of Fission Uranium may, on the face of it, be looking shaky as the company delays the date of a meeting for shareholders to vote on the transaction.

However, the understanding is the real reason for the delay is that a number of shareholders have not got around to registering to vote on the deal despite being in support.

It’s an unusual situation to present itself for an ASX-listed stock, although it’s happened before in offshore markets.

The deal involves Fission shareholders receiving 0.1076 Paladin shares for each Fission share, which was a 25.8 per cent premium to its closing share price in Toronto at the time the deal was reached, and they will own 24 per cent of Paladin.

Analysts had earlier said that funding Fission’s Pattersons Lake development in the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan would cost about $1.3bn, but Paladin could use the cash earned from its Langer Henrich uranium mine to fund Fission capital spending on its developments.

The vote for the deal to proceed was supposed to happen on Monday, but Paladin said then it would now happen on September 9. It said, based on a preliminary assessment of votes received by Fission’s proxy solicitor, the majority cast to date in support of the arrangement was still less than the 66 per cent required to approve it.

Nearly half of the votes remained outstanding and the postponement of the meeting was intended to provide additional time for all security holders to have the opportunity to make their voices heard.