Third-Party Tender Offers Launched per Month (Schedule TO-T)

## What this measures

How many original Schedule TO-T statements were filed in the month. A bidder files one when it offers to buy a company's shares directly from shareholders, the route of most cash takeovers and hostile bids, and of offers for units of non-traded REITs and partnerships.

## Why it matters

Tender offers are the fastest way to close a cash acquisition, so they rise when buyers have cash and confidence. Hostile and unsolicited bids also arrive this way.

## How to read it

Higher means more takeover offers going directly to shareholders. Counts are small; compare whole years or a trailing average.

## What it does not say

It counts offers, not completed deals: some fail, are withdrawn or are topped. It includes "mini-tender" style offers by specialist buyers for units of non-traded REITs and limited partnerships, which are not takeovers. Issuer self-tenders (Schedule TO-I) are not counted.

## How it's built

Palanor counts original SC TO-T filings (not amendments) by filing date, one per accession: the form index lists both the subject company and the bidder, and the subject is taken from the filing's header. History starts in January 2001, the first full year under Regulation M-A. A daily job reads the daily form indexes. A month is written once its last days are in.

## Source

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full and daily form indexes (sec.gov/Archives/edgar) and each filing's EDGAR header. Public domain: "Information presented on sec.gov is considered public information and may be copied or further distributed by users of the web site without the SEC's permission" (SEC website dissemination policy, sec.gov/about/privacy-information).