| Page 1140 599 F.2d 1140
Fed. Sec. L. Rep. P 96,833
PRUDENT REAL ESTATE TRUST,
Appellant,
v.
JOHNCAMP REALTY, INC., et al., Appellees.
No. 1009, Docket 79-7215.
United States Court of Appeals,
Second Circuit. Argued April 4, 1979.
Decided April 12, 1979.
Page 1141
Harry I. Rand, New York City
(Botein, Hays, Sklar & Herzberg, Stanley M.
Kolber, and Lawrence M. Kaye, New York City,
of counsel), for appellant.
Richard C. Tufaro, New York City
(Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, Harry L.
Simmons, Charles E. Dropkin, Sarah
Lichtenstein, Michael L. Michael, and Edward
G. Williams, New York City, of counsel), for
appellees.
Before MOORE, FRIENDLY and
MESKILL, Circuit Judges.
FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge:
On March 28, 1979, we heard a
motion by appellant Prudent Real Estate
Trust (Prudent), the target of a tender
offer by the defendant Johncamp Realty, Inc.
(Johncamp), for an injunction pending appeal
from an order of the District Court for the
Southern District of New York, which had
denied Prudent's motion for a temporary
injunction against the continuation of a
tender offer on the ground that the material
filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) pursuant to 17 C.F.R. §
240.14d-100 implementing § 14(d) of the
Securities and Exchange Act was insufficient
and that, because of certain statements and
omissions, the offer violated § 14(e) of the
Act. We granted the motion until argument of
an expedited appeal on April 4, and then
extended the injunction pending decision. We
now reverse and instruct the district court
to issue an appropriate temporary
injunction.
Prudent is a New York business
trust whose shares are traded on the
American Stock Exchange, which has qualified
as a real estate investment trust under §§
856-859 of the Internal Revenue Code. It now
has six trustees, only two of whom receive
substantial compensation. Defendant Johncamp
is a Delaware close corporation which was
founded by Johncamp Netherlands Antilles,
N.V. (Johncamp N.V.) and The Pacific
Company, a California corporation (Pacific).
Johncamp N.V. owns 60% And Pacific 40% Of
the common shares of Johncamp. All of the
stock of Johncamp N.V. is owned by Campeau
Corporation (Campeau), a publicly held
Ontario corporation; Robert Campeau, a
resident of Canada, is chairman of its board
and chief executive officer. John E. Wertin,
a resident of California, is president,
secretary and a director of Johncamp,
president and a director and sole
stockholder of Pacific, and president and
director of John Wertin Development
Corporation (JWDC), a California
Page 1142 corporation, 95% Of the stock of which is
owned by Pacific. Johncamp, Pacific and JWDC
have their principal places of business at
the same address in Irvine, California;
Johncamp N.V. and Campeau have their
principal places of business at the same
address in Ottawa. In an elaborate
stockholders' agreement dated March 12,
1979, Johncamp N.V. and Pacific contracted
that in order to enable Johncamp to make the
tender offer for shares of Prudent, Johncamp
N.V. would invest up to $20,000,000 and
Pacific up to $5,000,000 in Johncamp
preferred shares. The agreement also
provided that subsequent to Johncamp's
acquisition of Prudent shares, Pacific
should have exclusive control of the voting
of such shares and, with an exception not
here material, management of any property
received in respect of such shares including
the right to dispose of such property for
cash; all other matters relating to the
management of Johncamp would be controlled
jointly by Johncamp N.V. and Pacific. The
parties would also cause Johncamp to retain
Pacific "as an independent contractor
responsible for supervising implementation
of decisions of the parties with respect to
the management and operation" of Johncamp.
Another agreement between Campeau, Johncamp
N.V., Pacific, Wertin and Johncamp related
to further details connected with the tender
offer. Wertin and JWDC guaranteed to Campeau
and Johncamp N.V. the performance by Pacific
of certain covenants in the agreements.
On March 12, 1979, Johncamp filed
with the SEC a Schedule 14 D-1 as required
for a tender offer by 17 C.F.R. §
240.14d-100. The schedule contained the form
of offer, which was advertised the following
day in the New York Times. The offer, which
was to expire on March 23 unless extended,
was to purchase any and all of Prudent's
outstanding shares at $7 net per share, as
against the last available market price of
47/8, and was not conditioned upon any
minimum number of shares being tendered. In
addition to usual warnings of such possible
consequences of the offer as delisting on
the American Stock Exchange, cessation of
qualification as margin securities, and
termination of registration under the
Securities Exchange Act, the offer had this
to say with respect to the possible effect
on REIT status:
If the Purchaser acquires all of the
Shares of the Company, the Company will not
qualify as a real estate investment trust
for its taxable year ending November 30,
1979. Moreover, even if the Purchaser
acquires less than all of the Shares of the
Company, it is possible that the Company
will not qualify as a real estate investment
trust for any taxable year if, as a result
of the Offer or any other transactions not
related to the Offer: (1) fewer than 100
persons beneficially own Shares of the
Company during at least 31 days of such
taxable year or (2) more than 50 percent in
value of the Shares is owned (directly or
indirectly under the provisions of Section
544 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as
amended) at any time during the last half of
any such taxable year by or for not more
than 5 individuals.
If the Company's qualification as a real
estate investment trust is terminated as a
result of the above-described rules or for
any other reason, the Company will not be
eligible to elect to be treated as a real
estate investment trust until the fifth
taxable year after the termination is
effective unless the Company establishes to
the satisfaction of the Internal Revenue
Service that its failure to qualify as a
real estate investment trust was due to
reasonable cause and not due to willful
neglect.
For any year in which the Company does
not qualify as a real estate investment
trust, it will be subject to Federal, State
and local taxation as a corporation and will
not be entitled to the favorable tax
treatment accorded qualified real estate
investment trusts and distributions to its
shareholders would not be deductible by the
Company in computing its taxable income.
The offer went on to state that
80% Of the required funds would be furnished
by
Page 1143 Johncamp N.V. which would obtain them from
Campeau, out of the latter's own funds or
from a $50,000,000 (Canadian) line of bank
credit described in some detail, and that
20% Would be supplied by Pacific which would
obtain the funds from JWDC and Wertin. The
purpose of the offer was to acquire all the
shares of Prudent but if this did not occur
pursuant to the offer, Johncamp, Campeau,
Johncamp N.V. and Pacific desired to acquire
enough shares to exercise control. The
purchaser intended to reconstitute the board
of trustees of Prudent as soon and as much
as possible. Although no specific plans for
Prudent's future had been formulated,
Johncamp N.V. and Pacific had established a
procedure to increase the likelihood that
Campeau's investment in Johncamp would be
fully recovered; pursuant to such procedure
Johncamp N.V. could cause a liquidation of
Prudent if Johncamp acquired at least
two-thirds of the outstanding shares. The
offer continued:
Implementation of any plans resulting
from a review of the Company would require
approval of the Board of Trustees and, if
required by the Declaration of Trust, the
approval of shareholders. The Declaration of
Trust provides that the Trustees shall not
sell all or substantially all of the assets
of the Company without the affirmative vote
of not less than a majority in interest of
the Shares then outstanding and entitled to
vote, nor can there be a termination of the
Company without the affirmative vote of not
less than two-thirds in interest of the
Shares then outstanding and entitled to
vote.
The only other portion of the
Schedule 14 D here relevant is Item 9.
Financial Statements of Certain Bidders.
This was answered: "Not applicable, but see
Exhibit 1." Exhibit 1 consisted of the
printed annual reports of Campeau for 1976
and 1977 and audited consolidated financial
statements for 1978.
On March 16, 1979, Prudent
initiated this action to enjoin the
defendants from proceeding with the tender
offer and moved for a temporary restraining
order and a preliminary injunction on
various grounds. One of these, not pressed
on this appeal but reserved for future
presentation in the district court after
further discovery, is that there is a secret
undisclosed plan to liquidate Prudent. The
three points urged below which continue to
be pressed here are the failure to disclose
in the Offer or the Schedule any financial
information about the Wertin interests, to
wit, Pacific, JWDC, and Wertin himself, as
17 C.F.R. § 240.14d-100, Item 9, allegedly
requires; the claimed inadequacy of the
discussion of the effects of loss of REIT
status; and the falsity of the statement
that Prudent could be terminated only by a
vote of two-thirds of the outstanding shares
when Prudent's declaration of trust also
allowed this to be done by the board of
trustees acting alone.
At a hearing on March 16, at
which Judge Owen declined to issue a
temporary restraining order, Johncamp's
counsel stated that, although Johncamp did
not believe the erroneous statement with
respect to termination of Prudent to be
material, it was considering correction of
that statement by amendment of the offering
documents. At a further hearing counsel
announced that it was filing a correcting
amendment with the SEC and would issue a
press release to that effect. However, the
amendment was not advertised in the New York
Times and, so far as appears, the press
release has not been reported; Johncamp was
unable to transmit it to Prudent
shareholders because of Prudent's refusal to
make the shareholders' list available a
subject being litigated in the New York
courts. The judge set the preliminary
injunction motion for argument on March 21
and directed that Wertin and W. J. Carroll,
Campeau's chief financial officer, be
deposed on March 20.
On March 23 the district judge
denied the motion for a temporary
injunction. After rejecting Prudent's claim
of a secret intent by Johncamp to liquidate,
he concluded that the error with respect to
the termination of Prudent was immaterial
and in any event had been cured and that the
disclosure as to the effect of REIT status
was adequate.
Page 1144 Doubtless because of the speed with which
the proceedings had to be conducted, he did
not discuss the most important, and
certainly the most interesting, of Prudent's
claims the failure to disclose any financial
information in regard to the Wertin
interests. In deciding whether the financial
condition of the Wertin interests was
material, we must now give appropriate
weight to the issuance of Schedule 14 D-1
effected by the release reported in 42 F.R.
38341 (July 28, 1977).
The relevant sections of the
Securities Exchange Act, § 14(d)(1) and (e),
added by the Williams Act of 1968, are too
familiar to require extended exposition. It
is sufficient here to say that in a case
like this § 14(d)(1) prohibits the making of
a tender offer by any person "unless at the
time copies of the offer or request or
invitation are first published or sent or
given to security holders, such person has
filed with the Commission a statement
containing such of the information specified
in section 13(d) of this title, and such
additional information as the Commission may
by rules and regulations prescribe as
necessary or appropriate in the public
interest or for the protection of
investors", and that "(a)ll requests, or
invitations for tenders or advertisements
making a tender offer or requesting or
inviting tenders of such a security shall be
filed as a part of such statement and shall
contain such of the information contained in
such statement as the Commission may by
rules and regulations prescribe." Section
14(e) makes it unlawful "for any person to
make any untrue statement of a material fact
or omit to state any material fact necessary
in order to make the statements made, in the
light of the circumstances under which they
are made, not misleading . . . ." The House
Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee
explained the need for the new legislation
as follows:
Where one company seeks control of
another by means of a stock-for-stock
exchange, the offer must be registered under
the Securities Act of 1933. The shareholder
gets a prospectus setting forth all material
facts about the offer. He knows who the
purchaser is, and what plans have been made
for the company. He is thus placed in a
position to make an informed decision
whether to hold his stock or to exchange it
for the stock of the other company.
In contrast when a cash tender offer is
made, no information need be filed or
disclosed to shareholders. Such an offer can
be made on the most minimal disclosure; yet
the investment decision whether to retain
the security or sell it is in substance
little different from the decision made on
an original purchase of a security, or on an
offer to exchange one security for another.
The persons seeking control . . . have
information about themselves and about their
plans which, if known to investors, might
substantially change the assumptions on
which the market price is based. This bill
is designed to make the relevant facts known
so that shareholders have a fair opportunity
to make their decision. H.Rep. No. 1711,
90th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 2
U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News pp. 2811,
2812-13 (1968).
This discussion reflected views
earlier expressed by the late Manuel F.
Cohen, Chairman of the SEC, in A Note on
Takeover Bids and Corporate Purchases of
Stock, 22 Bus.Law 149, 149-50 (1966). See
also Sen.Rep. No. 539, 90th Cong., 1st
Sess., at 2 and 3.
Faced with the need of quickly
issuing regulations the SEC responded with a
set of emergency rules, 33 F.R. 11015. These
made no express requirement for revelation
of the financial condition of the offeror.
In November and December 1974 the SEC
conducted Tender Offer Hearings; these led
to the publication of proposed § 14(d)
regulations on August 6, 1976, 41 F.R.
33004.
Meanwhile cases presenting the
question whether the maker of a cash offer
must furnish information about its financial
position were beginning to reach the courts.
Since Schedule 14 D had not yet been
formulated,
Page 1145 plaintiffs had to take the harder road of
asserting that failure to furnish such
information constituted a violation of §
14(e). The first case was
Corenco Corp. v. Schiavone & Sons, Inc., 362
F.Supp. 939, 948-50 (S.D.N.Y.1973).
Judge Ward held that § 14(e) required the
offeror, Schiavone & Sons, Inc., to provide
enough information about itself to enable a
Corenco shareholder to make an informed
decision.
1
Schiavone did not appeal; Corenco appealed
from a later order which allowed Schiavone
to proceed with the offer once the necessary
information was supplied. This court
affirmed, 488 F.2d 207, 214-16 (1973).
Although both sides endeavor to extract
crumbs from Judge Mansfield's opinion, we
deem the endeavor futile, since, as the
opinion clearly stated, the issue whether
the district court had been correct in
compelling Schiavone to furnish information
was not before it. Next came
Alaska Interstate Company v. McMillian, 402
F.Supp. 532, 546-49 (D.Del.1975), a case
of exceeding complexity. Judge Stapleton
framed the issue as being whether "the
Williams Act is violated whenever one who
tenders for less than all of the stock and
proposes an acquisition of the target
corporation for its own securities fails to
provide its financials in the tender
materials." In answering that question in
the negative he stressed the large amount of
financial information about the offeror that
was readily available and the fact that the
SEC had not yet required disclosure when the
offer was in cash rather than securities of
the offeror.
Finally, in Copperweld Corporation v.
Imetal, 403 F.Supp. 579, 598-602
(W.D.Pa.1975), Judge Miller stated that
he was "inclined to agree with Copperweld
(the target) that, Under appropriate
circumstances, financials can be required
under Section 14(e)" (emphasis in original),
but held that the reports filed by a French
offeror were sufficient although they did
not conform to SEC Regulation S-X but had
been prepared in accordance with French
requirements.
2
Meanwhile, the SEC's rulemaking
had been proceeding and in a release
appearing on July 28, 1977, 42 F.R. 38341-50
new regulations were issued, which for the
first time adopted a schedule 14 D,
specifically tailored to § 14(d) of the Act.
The schedule included as Item 9, 42 F.R.
38349:
Item 9. Financial Statements of Certain
Bidders. Where the bidder is other than a
natural person and the bidder's financial
condition is material to a decision by a
security holder of the subject company
whether to sell, tender or hold securities
being sought in the tender offer, furnish
current, adequate financial information
concerning the bidder, Provided, That if the
bidder is controlled by another entity which
is not a natural person and has been formed
for the purpose of making the tender offer,
furnish current, adequate financial
information concerning such parent.
Instructions. 1. The facts and
circumstances concerning the tender offer,
particularly the terms of the tender offer,
may influence a determination as to whether
disclosure of financial information is
material. However, once the materiality
requirement is applicable, the adequacy of
the financial information will depend
primarily on the nature of the bidder.
In order to provide guidance in making
this determination, the following types of
financial information will be deemed
adequate for purposes of this item for the
type of bidder specified: (a) Financial
statements prepared in compliance with Form
10 as amended (§ 249.210 of this chapter)
for a domestic bidder which is otherwise
eligible to use such form; and (b) financial
statements prepared in compliance with Form
20 (§ 249.200 of this chapter) for a foreign
bidder which is otherwise eligible to use
such form.
Page 1146
2. If the bidder is subject to the
periodic reporting requirements of sections
13(a) or 15(d) of the Act, financial
statements contained in any document filed
with the Commission may be incorporated by
reference in this schedule solely for the
purposes of this schedule; Provided, That
such financial statements substantially meet
the requirements of this item; an express
statement is made that such financial
statements are incorporated by reference;
the matter incorporated by reference is
clearly identified by page, paragraph,
caption or otherwise; and an indication is
made where such information may be inspected
and copies obtained. Financial statements
which are required to be presented in
comparative form for two or more fiscal
years or periods shall not be incorporated
by reference unless the material
incorporated by reference includes the
entire period for which the comparative data
is required to be given.
3. If the bidder is not subject to the
periodic reporting requirements of the Act,
the financial statements required by this
item need not be audited if such audited
financial statements are not available or
obtainable without unreasonable cost or
expense and a statement is made to that
effect disclosing the reasons therefor.
Explaining Item 9, the SEC
pointed out that its initial proposal had
required the bidder's financials "if an
average, prudent investor ought reasonably
to be informed of such information in
deciding whether to tender, sell or hold
securities sought in the tender offer," that
commentators had "expressed concern about
the materiality test and the original
requirement of compliance with Form 10," and
that several changes had been made in
response. Emphasizing that Item 9 retained
the concept of materiality and that this was
dependent on the facts and circumstances,
the Commission said, 42 F.R. at 38346:
These may include, but are not limited
to: (1) the terms of the tender offer,
particularly those terms concerning the
amount of securities being sought, such as
any or all, a fixed minimum with the right
to accept additional shares tendered, all or
none, and a fixed percentage of the
outstanding; (2) whether the purpose of the
tender offer is for control of the subject
company; (3) the plans or proposals of the
bidder described in Item 5 of the Schedule;
and (4) the ability of the bidder to pay for
the securities sought in the tender offer
and/or to repay any loans made by the bidder
or its affiliates in connection with the
tender offer or otherwise. It should be
noted that the factors described above are
not exclusive nor is it necessary that any
or all such factors be present in order to
trigger the materiality test.
It stressed also that the rigor
of the requested financial reporting had
been abated. While Forms 10 and 20
constituted "safe harbors", a bidder not
subject to the reporting requirements of the
Act could provide even unaudited financial
statements if audited statements were not
available or obtainable without unreasonable
cost or expense. The Commission took
specific note of the Corenco case.
The parties accept that the test
of materiality is that stated
TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426
U.S. 438, 449, 96 S.Ct. 2126, 48 L.Ed.2d 757
(1976), although that case arose under
Rule 14a-9 concerning proxy contests. The
Court there opted for a test lying between
the Seventh Circuit's formulation there
under review, " 'all facts which a
reasonable shareholder might consider
important,' " and the more stringent tests
enunciated by us
General Time Corp. v. Talley Industries,
Inc.,
403 F.2d 159, 162 (1968), Cert.
denied, 393 U.S. 1026, 89 S.Ct. 631, 21
L.Ed.2d 570 (1969) and
Gerstle v. Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., 478 F.2d
1281, 1301-02 (1973) and the
Fifth Circuit in John R. Lewis, Inc. v.
Newman, 446 F.2d 800, 804 (1971) and
Smallwood v. Pearl Brewing Co., 489 F.2d
579, 603-04 (1974). The Court's
formulation was, 426 U.S. at 449, 96 S.Ct.
at 2132:
An omitted fact is material if there is a
substantial likelihood that a reasonable
shareholder would consider it important in
deciding how to vote.
Page 1147
The Court made the further
pertinent comment:
It does not require proof of a
substantial likelihood that disclosure of
the omitted fact would have caused the
reasonable investor to change his vote. What
the standard does contemplate is a showing
of a substantial likelihood that, under all
the circumstances, the omitted fact would
have assumed actual significance in the
deliberations of the reasonable shareholder.
Put another way, there must be a substantial
likelihood that the disclosure of the
omitted fact would have been viewed by the
reasonable investor as having significantly
altered the "total mix" of information made
available.
In applying this test to a cash
tender offer, it is necessary to appreciate
the problem faced by a stockholder of the
target company in deciding whether to
tender, to sell or to hold part or all of
his securities. It is true that, in the case
of an "any and all" offer such as that here
at issue, a stockholder who has firmly
decided to tender has no interest in the
financial position of the offeror other than
its ability to pay a point not here at issue
since he will have severed all financial
connections with the target. It is also true
that in the case of such an offer, there is
less reason for him to seek to eliminate the
risk of being partly in and partly out by
selling to arbitrageurs, usually at a price
somewhere between the previous market and
the offered price, than where the offer is
for a stated number or percentage of the
shares (with or without the right to accept
additional shares) or is conditioned on a
minimum number being obtained. Still, the
shareholder of the target company faces a
hard problem in determining the most
advantageous course of action, a problem
whose difficulty is enhanced by his usual
ignorance of the course other shareholders
are adopting. If the bidder is in a
flourishing financial condition, the
stockholder might decide to hold his shares
in the hope that, if the offer was only
partially successful, the bidder might raise
its bid after termination of the offer or
infuse new capital into the enterprise. Per
contra, a poor financial condition of the
bidder might cause the shareholder to accept
for fear that control of the company would
pass into irresponsible hands. The force of
these considerations is diminished but not
altogether removed in this case by the fact
that the Wertin interests were supplying
only 20% Of the financing and that Campeau's
annual reports for 1976 and 1977 and its
financial statements for 1978, which were
incorporated in the Schedule 14 D, showed it
to be a company of substance. As against
this, the stockholders' agreement gave
Wertin the right to vote all acquired
Prudent shares and the district court found
that Wertin was to manage the properties.
The case came within item (2) and possibly
item (3) of the SEC's release, 42 F.R.
38346.
Johncamp relies on statements by
SEC Chairman Cohen before the House
Committee at the hearings that led to the
Williams Act wherein he analogized the
information required by the bill to be
provided to stockholders with that required
in proxy contests, where Regulation 14 A
does not require a challenger to file its
financial statements unless it proposes a
merger or consolidation or the issuance "of
securities of another issuer", even if its
objective is to gain control.
3
Prudent counters with the language from the
House Committee report quoted above, echoing
Chairman Cohen's article, that in the case
of a cash tender offer "the investment
decision whether to retain the security or
sell it is in substance little different
from the decision made on an original
purchase of a security, or on an offer to
exchange one security for another." See to
the same effect Sen.Rep. No. 550, 90th
Cong., 1st Sess. at 3. In truth the
Page 1148 situation is not precisely like any of these
models. It differs from the proxy contest
Simpliciter in that an investment decision
is being made; it differs from an original
purchase of a security or an offer to
exchange one security for another in that
the stockholder does not have to appraise
what he is buying. It differs also from an
ordinary sale in that the investment
decision is influenced not solely by general
factors affecting the prospects of the
economy, the market, or the company, but
importantly by the particular proposal being
made. In any event we must look to some
extent to what the Congressional committees
said rather than to what the facts are.
From the beginning of litigation
under the Williams Act, this court has been
conscious of its responsibility not to allow
management to "resort to the courts on
trumped-up or trivial grounds as a means for
delaying and thereby defeating legitimate
tender offers."
Electronic Specialty Co. v. International
Controls Corp.,
409 F.2d 937, 947 (1969);
Missouri Portland Cement Co. v. Cargill,
Inc., 498 F.2d 851, 854, 873, Cert.
denied, 419 U.S. 883, 95 S.Ct. 150, 42
L.Ed.2d 123 (1974). However, the issue
raised by this appeal seems to us to be one
where it does matter that the test of
materiality is not the more severe one we
proposed in General Time and Gamble-Skogmo,
supra, but the standard fashioned by the
Supreme Court in 1976, "substantial
likelihood that . . . disclosure of the
omitted fact would have assumed actual
significance in the deliberations of the
reasonable shareholder." TSC Industries,
Inc. v. Northway, Inc., supra, 426 U.S. at
449, 96 S.Ct. at 2132. An important factor
here is the impracticability of obtaining
information about the Wertin interests from
other sources. See Aranow, Einhorn, &
Berlstein, Developments in Tender Offers for
Corporate Control, at 61 (1977). At the very
least there is "fair ground for litigating"
the issue of materiality and the balance of
hardships tips heavily in Prudent's favor.
Hamilton Watch Co. v. Benrus Watch Co., 206
F.2d 738, 740 (2 Cir. 1953). We are
further influenced by the fact that our
decision imposes no serious impediment to
cash tender offers. Even in this case the
omission can be readily corrected; in future
cases presumably it will not be made, see
Corenco, supra, 488 F.2d at 214.
We think also that the
acknowledged error in stating that Prudent's
existence could be terminated only by a vote
of two-thirds of the outstanding shares when
the declaration of trust also allowed this
to be done by a unanimous board of trustees
was material. It was quite possible that
Johncamp might acquire enough stock to name
all new trustees although having less than
two-thirds of the outstanding shares. We are
not required to determine whether knowledge
of the more immediate prospect of Prudent's
termination would cause a stockholder to be
less or more willing to tender; it was
knowledge he was entitled to have. We also
cannot agree that issuance of a press
release which was not published anywhere was
an adequate correction.
Prudent points to two omissions
in the offer's discussion of the effect of
loss of REIT status under the Internal
Revenue Code as a result of too large a
concentration of ownership in Johncamp. One
concerns the ability of a REIT to declare
"capital gains dividends", IRC § 857(b)(3);
the other is the requirement that in order
to retain REIT status the trust must pay out
90% (95% In taxable years beginning on or
after January 1, 1980) of taxable operating
income as dividends, IRC § 857(a) an
incentive that would no longer exist if REIT
status had been lost in any event. It is not
a sufficient answer that Prudent's primary
interest was in holding real estate rather
than in selling it, or that Prudent had
suffered losses in recent years. Unlike the
district court, we see no meaningful
distinction between this case and
Commonwealth Oil Refining Co., Inc. v.
Tesoro Petroleum Corp., 394 F.Supp. 267, 278
(S.D.N.Y.1975), a decision by Judge
Cannella with which we broadly agree.
Joyce v. Joyce Beverages, Inc.,
571 F.2d 703
(2 Cir. 1978) (complaint under Rule
10b-5 alleging incorrectness of one and
incompleteness of another statement of legal
consequence of a consolidation should not
have been dismissed under F.R.Civ.P.
12(b)(6)). However, we do not believe
Johncamp was obliged to attempt
Page 1149 to quantify the effect of loss of REIT
status.
We therefore reverse the order
under appeal and direct the district court
to issue a temporary injunction. It will be
sufficient if this extends only until
Johncamp makes the necessary corrections and
allows a reasonable period for withdrawal of
stock already tendered; we see no need for
the further cooling-off period that Prudent
requests. While, as a general matter, the
need for filing information on the financial
condition of a bidder is not quite such a
Res nova as it was before the district court
decision in Corenco, see 488 F.2d at 214-15,
the applicability of Item 9 of Schedule 14 D
in a situation like this was far from clear.
The other two infirmities we have found seem
to have been inadvertent and not at all
"deliberate violations of the Williams Act,"
Id. Since Prudent conceded that its only
reason for declining to make its stockholder
list available to Johncamp was the alleged
defects in the offer and Schedule 14 D, the
order should direct that this be done once
the corrections are made if litigation in
the New York courts has not yet produced
that result.
Our injunction pending appeal
will remain in force until a temporary
injunction is issued by the district court.
The mandate shall issue forthwith.
1 Judge Ward found the following factors
to be relevant, 362 F.Supp. at 950:
(1) no financial information concerning
Schiavone is available; (2) Schiavone seeks
control; (3) Schiavone contemplates a
merger; and (4) less than all shares are
sought.
2 The court also put weight on the fact
that Schiavone's offer in Corenco had been
for less than a third of the shares whereas
Imetal offered to purchase all.
3 However, Item 15(c) of Schedule 14 A
provides:
The Commission may also require the
filing of other statements in addition to,
or in substitution for, the statements
herein required in any case where such
statements are necessary or appropriate for
an adequate presentation of the financial
condition of any person whose financial
statements are required, or whose statements
are otherwise material for the exercise of
prudent judgment in regard to any matter to
be acted upon. |