Commentary

MDC-Stagwell Tie-up Approved By A Wide Margin

Despite all the drama in the last couple of months leading up to this week’s shareholder vote on the MDC-Stagwell merger, the vote to approve wasn’t all that close.

MDC filed an SEC document today that showed the vote tally to be more than 3-to-1 in favor of the merger or 49,897,961 for and 14,376,909 opposed.

Excluding the shares voted by MDC CEO and Stagwell founder Mark Penn and MDC director and Goldman Sachs merchant banker Bradley Gross, the vote was more than 2-to-1 in favor of the merger.

Indaba Capital Management, MDC’s largest independent shareholder with over 9 million shares vehemently and publicly objected to the terms of the merger leading up to the vote and indicated it would not approve it. But other big shareholders, like Madison Avenue Partners gave the transaction a thumbs up.

MDC shareholders will own about 31% of the merged entity which will be renamed Stagwell Inc. 

MDC expects the merger to close in August. The combined company will have more than 10,000 employees and is projected to generate $2 billion in revenue in 2021.

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