When a company approaches another company to acquire them do they speak with the shareholders or with the board of directors?? And how exactly does a hostile takeover happen if the majority of the owners don’t wanna sell???

Question

Ok so let’s say company A wants to buy company B. Do they speak with the board of company B to acquire them or with the shareholders?? If they speak with the board and they say no but the majority of the shareholders want to sell couldn’t they just fire the board?? But if they speak with the shareholders and the majority of them don’t want to sell how can a hostile takeover happen ???

In: Economics

Answer 1

They go to the Board of B and ask.

If the Board says “No”, then A might mount a “hostile takeover” by going to the stockholders of B to get them to sell all their shares to A. If A has enough shares, it replaces the board and, not surprisingly, the board says “Yes”.