Competing open-offer timelines require announcement within fifteen working days; offer letters cannot reset the statutory clock.

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

....Regulation 20(1) requires a competing acquirer to make its public announcement within 15 working days of the first acquirer's detailed public statement. The period cannot be reckoned from dispatch or advertisement of the first acquirer's letter of offer, because that would disturb the uniform statutory timetable for competing offers and prejudice a compliant first offeror. A competing offer made after that period could not be entertained. Regulation 11 permits exemption only from the obligation to make an open offer; it does not waive procedural requirements or competing-offer timelines. Once the first open offer had concluded, the exemption request was untenable, without preventing a fresh takeover bid under the SAST Regulations.....