I don't know if the merger is on, or whether it's just a common procedural move he has done repeatedly to save a few weeks of extra waiting.
But I am surprised that people are simultaneously praising Sharp for expediting the custodianship termination, or even just for terminating the custodianship, while also claiming that there will be share cancellations. I'm pretty sure that if he wanted to cancel shares, he needed to do that through the court prior to terminating the custodianship.
So I wouldn't count on those 291M restricted shares being canceled, but then again that's a minor 12% of the OS.