Status Report: Gemstar-TV Guide - Macrovision

Gemstar-TV Guide (GMST) and Macrovision (MVSN) have been publicly projecting shareholder meetings in roughly mid-March, but this could easily subject to change quickly in the form of postponements if the companies fail to gain some sort of positive momentum from shareholders.

In general, it would not be a bad idea for the companies to actually delay the proxy process and shareholder meeting scheduling until they can mount some sort of concerted effort to convince a vast majority of shareholders to approve the deal. However, there is no real indication that the companies will indeed take this approach.

In any case where rationale and shareholder concerns are involved, it is extremely difficult to gauge the outcome several weeks, or months, prior to the shareholder votes. This is a prime example of this, and therefore uncertainty will probably surround this deal right up until the shareholder meetings.

For now, there is does not appear to exist the kind of organized and/or widespread shareholder dissent to strongly suggest that shareholders will reject the deal. Thus, it remains tentatively projected that shareholder approval will be obtained at some point in March, or perhaps April of this year.

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