The agreed acquisition of Telent, the rump of Marconi, the telecoms equipment company, fell apart on Friday after the hedge fund that is the company’s biggest shareholder voted it down.
Polygon, the activist hedge fund that holds 23.9 per cent of Telent’s equity, angered Telent’s management, other shareholders and Fortress Investment Group, the US private equity firm, which had offered to pay £346m for the telecoms services company.
â€ÂThis deal’s dead. There’s no other deal to replace it,†said John Devaney, chairman of Telent.
The wrangle in the run-up to the vote raised questions over the use of derivatives during takeovers, the utility of the Takeover Code and the nascent secondary market for mature occupational pension funds.
The extraordinary meeting on Friday held the prospect of high drama. Polygon had already cast its proxy vote against the takeover on Wednesday night but
