Another independent advisory firm, Glass Lewis, has recommended to Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) shareholders to vote in favour of Vodafone’s £1.04bn takeover offer.
Just days ago Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) had also recommended to…
Another independent advisory firm, Glass Lewis, has recommended to Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) shareholders to vote in favour of Vodafone’s £1.04bn takeover offer.
Just days ago Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) had also recommended to accept Vodafone’s proposal
In its proxy paper, released on Thursday evening, Glass Lewis noted that the offer “represents immediate and certain value for CWW shareholders,” while the alternative of CWW remaining a standalone company had high execution risks.
CWW had conducted an adequate review of strategic alternatives, and Vodafone’s offer was the best one CWW could get at this time, the advisory firm wrote.
However, the offer failed to match multiples for comparable transactions: “The CWW acquisition implies a trailing EV/sales multiple of 0.6x and a trailing EV/EBITDA multiple of 3.3x, based on last-12-months results. That’s below median multiples of 2.1x sales and 8.7x EBITDA in 20 prior transactions in the Western European telecom industry and 2.2x sales and 9.2x EBITDA in 21 prior transactions in the North American telecom industry during the last five years”.
Those lower multiples might be justified in light of CWW’s performance, Glass Lewis added. It also noted that the 92% on-day premium, and the 122% one-month premium “far exceed the average and median premiums paid in the various groups of precedent transactions”.
Summarising its recommendation that shareholders should vote in favour of the proposed scheme of arrangement, Glass Lewis summarised: “In short, we believe a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, in this case”.
