A bid is an offer made by the prospective buyer to existing shareholders of a company, which are completely free to accept or not. If you do not agree to continue with actions in their power and remain shareholders of the company, regardless of whether the other shareholders the takeover bid go or not. There are times in practice no choice but to accept the bid, although not legally binding. The situations which can arise in a takeover bid for 100% of a company are: OPA's exclusion Exchange: In this case no choice but to accept. Shares quoted on the stock market stop at the end of the OPA, which creates several problems when it decides to continue as a shareholder of the company: The warehouse and custodial fees charged by the bank in which are deposited the shares can go from 5-10 usual per year to 200, 500 or 1,000, depending on the bank and the amount of shares. All analysts and banks fail to follow the company, making it almost impossible to get information. The only way to sell the shares is to contact someone who want to buy (by placing an advertisement in the press, cosultando to the company, etc.) and sell through a private contract, perhaps going to a notary. In other words, it is almost impossible to sell and it costs far outweigh those of a stock transaction. To top, the price must be negotiated one on one because there is no official listing (and want to sell as no one gives much strength in negotiation) It is possible that the company no longer edit the traditional annual report in which he reported on the progress of the company and the only documentation available is the legally binding, ie the balance sheet and profit and loss account (a string of numbers are incomprehensible to those who are not experts in accounting).