Proration

What Is Proration?

Proration is a type of corporate action that may arise during an event such as an acquisition, where a company splits its original cash and equity offer in response to shareholder preferences.

In certain situations, the acquiring firm will offer a combination of cash and equity, and shareholders of the firm being acquired can elect to take either. If available cash or shares are not sufficient to satisfy the offers that shareholders tender, the remaining stock is prorated: the company grants a proportion of both cash and shares for each offer tendered so that everyone gets their fair share of the deal.

Proration should not be confused with pro-rata, which indicates some proportional allocation or distribution.

Understanding Proration

Proration supports shareholders by ensuring that a company holds to its initial target and does not favor some investors over others (e.g. giving a percentage of shareholders the cash they wanted while delivering shares to the rest). While this means that every investor might not receive their initial election, it ensures that all receive the same value.

Other situations in which the need for proration might occur include bankruptcy or liquidation, special dividends, stock splits, and spinoffs. While these corporate actions must be approved by shareholders, and a company will typically list them on a firm's proxy statement in advance of its annual meeting, shareholders must occasionally sacrifice to maximize wealth for all shareholders.

Proration and Additional Merger Considerations

When deciding to merge, in addition to how both companies will reward shareholders, it is important to take into consideration the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines on keeping the industry competitive and avoiding the creation of monopolies. For example, it’s important to ask whether a proposed merger will create or enhance market power or not. An antitrust concern arises particularly with proposed horizontal mergers between direct competitors.

Example of Proration

Suppose a company decides to acquire a rival for $100 million, which consists of 75% cash and 25% equity. The cash-equity split might undergo a revision if a majority of investors of the company being acquired elect to be paid in cash. In that case, the acquiring company will change its accounting figures in order to accommodate the demand for cash. This will result in each investor of the acquired company receiving less cash than originally planned. Halliburton had to revise its original stock buyback offer of 2013 and reduced it by a factor of 67.9% in order to balance investor demand and its stock price at that time.