I haven't followed takeovers for a long while. However, I have never seen a combo like that. Standard takeovers and schemes of arrangements have very different rules. Just had a quick peek. So it's not binding yet and may still fall through if certain conditions aren't met. From my read, the offer is the scheme of arrangement. It is only if that fails that you get the chance to take the other offer. They'll tell you the exact requirements but from what I recall, schemes of arrangement only need 75% of shares to accept (and a much smaller percentage of shareholders). If it achieves that, it passes and they take your shares, kind of like a compulsory acquisition. So you would have to nominate which form of the scheme you want to accept. I expect they will have a default of cash for the people who don't nominate. It's only if that fails to pass, they move to Plan B and you get to accept or reject the other takeover offer. So their goal is to get 100% but their Plan B is 50.1% or more.
"The Takeover Offer would be conditional upon Brookfield achieving acceptances from shareholders representing 50.1% of Healthscope’s total issued capital and the BrookfieldScheme of Arrangement being unsuccessful.
The Takeover Offer would remain open for a period of at least two weeks after the date of the scheme meeting, which will not be held before 1 April 2019. As such, Healthscope shareholders would have the opportunity to consider the Takeover Offer after they have voted on the proposed Scheme of Arrangement and the outcome of that vote is known."
That's how I understand it. Happy for others to comment if they see if differently.
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