was on.
There were forty-four days until the vote.
Jay Lee was having breakfast with JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon when
he learned about the fierce opposition Paul Singer was putting up. Samsung
executives realized that winning approval of the merger from shareholders
would not be easy. Jay Lee needed a 55.7 percent shareholder vote in favor
of the merger.
COURTESY OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, PUBLISHED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE
Paul Elliott Singer, the founder of the activist hedge fund Elliott Management,
is known as “The World’s Most Feared Investor.”On June 9 Elliott filed for a court injunction against holding an
upcoming shareholders’ meeting to vote on the merger, arguing it was
unlawful. The next day, the construction company enlisted the help of an
ally in a shareholding maneuver that would be impossible in the United
States. It tapped into its bank of treasury shares, a key tool for maintaining
family control, and sold all of them for $608 million to South Korean
chemical and auto parts manufacturer KCC Corporation, instantly turning
the previously obscure manufacturing firm into Samsung C&T’s fourth-
largest shareholder.