Mason says Telus’ voting shareholders must be compensated in conversion plan

MONTREAL – A U.S. hedge fund says Telus Corp. (TSX:T) has until Thursday to send notice of a special meeting for its voting shareholders, who are being askedto approve a minimum acceptable premium for their support of one class of common shares.

Mason Capital Management co-founder Michael Martino says if Telus doesn’t send out the notice to shareholders by the Thursday deadline, his company will exercise its right to send the notice itself.

New York-based Mason Capital is in a fight with the Vancouver-based telecom company over its plan to convert its non-voting shares on a one-to-one basis to a common class of shares.

Martino says voting shareholders must be compensated in the conversion plan because those shares have always been worth more money.

Mason is proposing a premium valuation of either 4.75 per cent — which represents the historic average trading premium of the voting shares over the non-voting shares — or a minimum premium of eight per cent.

Mason Capital owns almost 20 per cent of Telus’ voting stock, but has also disclosed that it has short sold the company’s non-voting shares. Short sellers make a profit when the stock price falls.