Takeover ploy?

I have just been contacted by phone from the US by someone claiming to represent a company there offering to buy shares that I am not aware of owning in Thomson Reuters on behalf of an unnamed client aiming to mount a takeover.

She said the client already holds 41 per cent of the shares and wants to get to 51 per cent but refused to give me the name - which I thought was rather churlish, not to say illegal, as with 41 per cent it is already well over the 29.9 per cent declaration threshold.

She said she would email me all the necessary documentation, starting with a non-disclosure agreement, as the process was so sensitive.

This seemed to me to be rather contradictory given her statements on the 41 per cent existing holding and her remark that it was a precursor to a full takeover which, by definition breached any sensitivity wall.

At that point I hung up. But she did email the NDA to me, which I have not signed. ■