Telus to go ahead with shareholder meeting after rival blocked by B.C. court

VANCOUVER – Telus Corp. (TSX:T) says it will go ahead with its plans for a meeting of all shareholders on Oct. 17, now that a B.C. court has ruled against a rival proposal from New York hedge fund Mason Capital Management LLC.

Telus and Mason are in a bitter, public battle over converting the Canadian telecom company’s dual-class share structure of voting and non-voting stock.

Telus wants just one class of common shares but Mason argues its approach doesn’t properly compensate holders of voting shares, including itself.

According to Telus, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled that Mason Capital isn’t entitled to call a rival meeting of only voting shareholders on the same day.

The latest ruling is part of a months-long power struggle between Mason Capital and the board of Telus, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company.

Mason owns nearly 20 per cent of Telus’ voting shares but it has also “sold short” some of its shares — a stock-trading manoeuvre that Telus argues reduces Mason’s true holding to less than one per cent of the company’s economic value.

Generally, an investor or group of investors with at least five per cent of a company’s stock are entitled to demand, or requisition, a meeting of a Canadian public company’s shareholders.

Telus says the court found that Mason’s Aug. 31 requisition for a meeting of just Telus common shareholders, and Mason’s resolutions for the meeting, were invalid and that Mason cannot hold its meeting.