What will it mean if Silver Fern Farms shareholders accept the Shanghai Maling deal?

The results of the vote on allowing Chinese company Shanghai Maling to get a 50% stake in Silver Fern Farms will be known shortly.Shareholders in the meat processing and exporting company have been voting over whether they will accept Shanghai Maling's 261 million dollar offer for 50% control. Silver Fern Farms is the biggest meat processor in an export industry worth 6 and a half billion dollars a year. For the deal to go ahead, 50 percent of Silver Fern Farms' 6 thousand 200 shareholders will need to vote in favour. But an agriculture and marketing academic from Otago University says if that happens small shareholders will be marginalised by a deal, he says effectively circumvents the Takeovers Code. Rob Hamlin also says the Shanghai-Maling appointed chairperson would also have a casting vote on matters that will effectively deliver complete control of the company to the Chinese Government.