Shareholders of fertilizer maker CF Industries Inc should support CF’s three candidates for its board of directors instead of withholding their votes to support Agrium Inc’s takeover attempt, proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics advised in a report released yesterday, according to Reuters.
CF rejected an unsolicited $3.8 billion takeover offer from Agrium, who said in a letter to CF’s stockholders that withholding votes would “send a clear message to the CF board to engage with Agrium.”
CF is also currently involved in a takeover bid for Terra Industries.
The RiskMetrics report alleges that the Agrium bid is not high enough and is too uncertain to justify withholding votes from the CF board candidates at the company’s annual meeting to be held on April 21.
“Although Agrium has fairly reasonable explanations for each move it has made, looking at the steps on a collective basis, along with the timing of the bid itself, may cause CF shareholders to conclude that the Agrium bid is something less than ‘certain,’” RiskMetrics said.