Telus drops its share plan

Article Excerpt

TELUS $57.97 (Toronto symbol T.A; Shares outstanding: 324.5 million; Market cap: $18.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.2%; www.telus.com) has dropped its plan to merge its common shares and its non-voting class A shares into a single class. The company had proposed to convert each non-voting share into one common share. However, the plan had little chance of succeeding, 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 proposal. Mason is using a complex stocktrading strategy that would let it lock in a profit if shareholders reject the plan. Telus still wants to eliminate the dual-class structure, and will probably reintroduce the proposal sometime in the next few months. One step it could take to help ensure the plan’s approval would be to have less time between the reintroduction of the plan and the vote. That way, Mason and other…