At its March 12, 2024 meeting, the MariaDB Board further resolved to appoint Chris Creger, a Senior Managing Director of FTI Consulting, Inc. (“FTI”) to serve as its Chief Restructuring Officer to primarily assist with an evaluation of the Company’s cash flows, advise on liquidity opportunities and assess operating business and profitability plans. Mr. Creger was formally engaged pursuant to an engagement letter, effective March 18, 2024, between the Company and FTI.
On March 21, 2024, Runa, Michael (Monty) Widenius, Smartfin, Bart Luyten, Jürgen Ingels, Open Ocean, Patrik Backman, and Ralf Wahlsten filed a Schedule 13-D/A announcing that they had formed a group to collectively express their opposition to the K1 Proposal and that on March 19, 2024, Runa, Open Ocean, and Smartfin delivered a letter to the Company in which they stated their opposition to the K1 Proposal because they did not believe the K1 Proposal was in the best interests of the Company or its shareholders.
On March 24, 2024, at the request of Mr. Banerjee and Mr. Mansour, representatives of Lazard held a call with representatives of RPV where such representatives indicated that RPV would be amenable to selling the RPV Note at a premium to K1. K1’s outreach resulted from a failure of the conversations referred to above during the month of February on a potential financing solution for the Company with RPV and, consequently, the RPV Note, the terms of which were likely incompatible with a successful offer from K1.
On March 25, 2024, K1 submitted a proposal to RPV offering to purchase the RPV Note for cash consideration of $50 million, together with $2 million for RPV’s accrued expenses to such point. Following feedback from representatives of RPV that same day, on March 26, 2024, K1 made a revised proposal, offering to purchase the RPV Note for aggregate total consideration (including accrued expenses of RPV) of $65 million. This proposal was delivered to RPV as a non-binding term sheet containing additional provisions, including a release, resignation of the directors appointed by RPV and certain other matters.
On March 26, 2024, Progress publicly announced, pursuant to Rule 2.4 of the Irish Takeover Rules, that it was considering a possible offer for all the issued, and to be issued, share capital of the Company at a value of $0.60 per share (the “Progress Proposal”).
On March 28, 2024, RPV returned to K1 a markup of the term sheet, increasing the proposed consideration for the RPV Note to $67.1 million, among other changes to the term sheet.
On March 29, 2024, at the formal request of the MariaDB Board, the Irish Takeover Panel consented, pursuant to Rule 2.6(c) of the Irish Takeover Rules, to an extension until 5.00 p.m. (New York time) on April 12, 2024 of the K1 PUSU Period. A further extension, at the request of the MariaDB Board, was granted by the Irish Takeover Panel on April 12, 2024, which extended the K1 PUSU Period until 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on April 22, 2024, and a further extension to 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on April 24, 2024, was granted on April 22, 2024. K1 had requested that the MariaDB Board ask the Irish Takeover Panel for each of these extensions, in order to provide K1 additional time to continue to negotiate the terms of the K1 Proposal.
On April 1, 2024, Mr. Ingels held a call with Mr. Gupta to discuss the background of Progress and the Progress Proposal.
On April 1, 2024, Runa, Michael (Monty) Widenius, Smartfin, Bart Luyten, Jürgen Ingels, Open Ocean, Patrik Backman and Ralf Wahlsten filed a Schedule 13-D/A announcing that on March 27, 2024, they delivered a letter to the Company in which they stated their opposition to the K1 Proposal and the Progress Proposal.
On April 4, 2024, representatives of Smartfin, Open Ocean, and K1 met to discuss the history and background of the Company.
On April 5, 2024, the Irish Takeover Panel granted a derogation from Rules 20.1 and 20.2 of the Irish Takeover Rules to permit K1 to seek irrevocable undertakings from certain Company shareholders prior to the publication of its announcement of a firm intention to make an offer for the Company. On April 9, 2024, at the direction of K1, Lazard began the process of contacting those specified shareholders, in accordance with the terms of the derogation granted by the Irish Takeover Panel which required meetings with those shareholders to be chaperoned by Lazard. During that outreach, certain shareholders expressed a desire to participate in a rollover opportunity, and subsequently the negotiations included discussions of the Unlisted Unit Alternative and whether each Company shareholder wished to elect for that alternative. The negotiation of the irrevocable undertakings to be entered into between K1 and the specific shareholders continued until immediately prior to the release by K1 of the Rule 2.7 announcement on April 24, 2024, of the recommended cash offer to be made by Bidco, an affiliate of K1, for the entire issued and to