Steve, takeovers can be friendly or unfriendly. Given Ed's desire to lead the company, I don't think a freindly takeover will happen soon. To me the risk is an unfriendly takeover.
All that would need to happen is for XYZ company (or individual) to make a tender offer for MZEI shares at $X price. $X price would likely start out fairly low and get raised until XYZ was able to gain majority control of the stock, hence the board and managment. The question is whether the $x price is reasonable relative to the value of the company and would incent enough shareholders to sell an effective controlling interest.
Management can put in place mechanisms to make this kind of action difficult. Have they worked on such and it just hasn't been announced? Who knows? Some of these types of mechanisms would require shareholder approval. Will we see something in the proxy? Again, who knows?
From my perspective, this type of action becomes more likely the more advanced the science is, it's protections are set in place and proof of market has been demonstrated. At this point, we shareholders have no idea what the company is worth, but should XYZ make a determination of value, then we may have the opportunity to say yes or no, accept the tender or not. What's each investor's price?
This again is another reason it would be valuable for Ed to disclose the business plan as soon as practical so that investors have the opportunity to form an opinion of valuation. Absent such, valuation is pretty much based upon emotion and someone dangling $x out there could look pretty attractive to a sufficient number of shareholders who may have no basis of saying it's truly worth more.
AI
