Telus revives its share plan

Article Excerpt

TELUS $62.14 (Toronto symbol T.A; Shares outstanding: 324.9 million; Market cap: $20.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.telus.com) has revived its plan to merge its common shares (one vote per share) and its non-voting class A shares into a single class of common shares. Investors will vote on the plan at a special meeting on October 17, 2012. Telus cancelled a vote on the proposal that was scheduled for May 2012 because it felt it had little chance of winning. That’s because U.S.-based hedge fund Mason Capital, which now owns around 19% of Telus’s common shares and a small portion of the non-voting shares, said it would vote against the plan. Mason feels that the voting shares deserve a premium—under Telus’s plan, both classes will be exchanged equally on a one-for-one basis. However, Telus’s new plan only needs the support of half of the voting shareholders, down from a two-thirds majority under the previous proposal. The lower threshold will make it…