The following news was announced on November 21 2014 and taken from Morningstar.
“The company (Friends Life) and Aviva PLC note the press speculation and confirm that they have reached agreement on the key financial terms of a possible all share combination of Aviva and the company (Friends Life). Under the terms of the Possible Offer, Aviva would acquire the entire Ords* capital of the company (Friends Life) on the basis of an exchange ratio of 0.74 Aviva Ords for each company Ords. The Possible Offer represents an indicative value of approximately 399p per company share. Aviva is required, by not later than 19 December 2014, to either announce a firm intention to make an offer or announce that it does not intend to make an offer.”
Ords* means ‘ordinary’ class of share
Discuss the impact on the share price of Friends Life and Aviva using the framework of Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) following the above news announcement.