Thank god it’s almost over…

Since my last post, IPH increased its offer for Xenith IP to $2.15 a share ($1.28 cash and 0.1261 IPH shares for each XIP share) on 8 April 2016.  QIP was blown away by the offer and declined to provide a counter-proposal, leaving the “merger of equals” to die a natural death (11 April).

Xenith IP and IPH have now entered into a Scheme Implementation Deed.  The key points for you gentle readers is that first the Scheme needs to be approved by a court (week commencing 3 June 2019) following which the Scheme needs to be approved by shareholders (week commencing 15 July 2019).  Should the shareholders approve it, a second court hearing is required to ratify the Scheme and then the acquisition proceeds inexorably from there with an implementation date in the week commencing 5 August 2019.

Will the shareholders approve the Scheme?  I suspect so.  It’s not like XIP were performing amazingly well, and in any case, they must be emotional wrecks by now, possibly suffering from Stockholm system and hoping, desperately, that they can go back to leading a quiet life and let IPH make all the hard decisions for them.

Life goes on, however, in the dynamic world of patents and you can bet your bottom dollar that Patent Busting will be there -asking the questions no one else can be bothered to ask.  I’ve foreshadowed a few future posts in our journey and I have a few others in mind as well, such as patents and transfer pricing, and the maturing ecosystem of patent attorney firms and their businesses.

Back soon….