The impact of the 2013 amendment to the Delaware General Corporation Law eliminating the need for 'top up' options.

Prior to adoption of Section 251(h) of the DGCL, which became effective on August 1, 2013 (and was subsequently amended effective August 1, 2014), unless an acquirer could obtain 90 percent of the target's voting stock necessary to effectuate a short-form merger under Section 253 of the DGCL or negotiate for a "top-up" option to get to get to 90 percent, a back-end merger required a stockholder vote. Prior to Section 251 (h)'s adoption, 23 percent of M&A deals involving public companies used the traditional two-step structure to close. In the year following its adoption, 34 percent of the M&A deals utilized the new Section 251(h) structure.

Section 251(h) was...