Some 97.9% Custodian Property Income REIT (CREI) shareholders voted in favour of its proposed merger with Abrdn Property Income Trust at an adjourned general meeting today (19 March).
The meeting, which was originally due to take place on 8 March, was rescheduled on 22 February this year in conjunction with Abrdn Property Income Trust (API). API’s board also pushed back its meeting regarding the potential all-share merger in order to assess a rival bid from Urban Logistics, allowing the firm to “clarify its intentions in relation to API”.
While the boards of CREI and API reached an agreement on the terms and conditions of a merger on 19 January, Urban Logistics tabled a rival bid – at a 13% premium to the aforementioned proposal – on 21 February.
In an announcement on the London Stock Exchange yesterday, Urban Logistics urged API shareholders to reject the CREI merger. This comes one week after API’s board urged shareholders to vote in favour of the original merger, and a week after CREI offered further incentives to shareholders ahead of the proposed deal.
As of this afternoon, a total of 146,653,139 CREI shareholders voted in favour of the Abrdn merger, while 3,147,049 – or 2.1% – voted against it.
David MacLellan, chair of CREI, said: “The board is pleased with the outcome of the vote, which demonstrated a very strong support from the CREI shareholders and further derisks the execution of the recommended merger.
“The board encourages the API shareholders to vote in favour of the scheme at the API court meeting and API general meeting, on 27 March 2024.”
