As announced today by The Student Loan Corporation (“SLC”), shareholder litigation arising from merger of SLC with Discover Financial Services and the related sales by SLC of student loan assets to SLM Corporation and Citibank, N.A. has been settled in exchange for Citibank’s agreement to pay $2.50 per share, or approximately $10 million, to the unaffiliated shareholders of SLC.
The settlement provides an 8.33% improvement to the $30.00 per share merger consideration to be paid to SLC shareholders pursuant to the merger agreement previously negotiated by SLC. Under the terms of the settlement, the costs of settlement administration and attorneys fees and expenses awarded by the Court, if any, will be paid by Citibank and will not reduce the funds payable to SLC shareholders.
The settlement follows intensive litigation in which over 300,000 pages of documents were produced by the defendants, depositions of the principal decisionmakers were conducted, and extensive legal briefing was submitted to the Delaware Court of Chancery. At a hearing on December 1, 2010 before Vice Chancellor Laster of the Court of Chancery, the Court scheduled trial to be held in June 2011.
The settlement is subject to confirmatory discovery by the plaintiffs and Court approval, among other conditions, and the date of payment of the settlement funds cannot now be fixed.