Mal said:
Haha. No bets here on whether a rematch would happen
APA blew an absolute fortune methinks. Oh well. It's like most bits of gambling. You throw a chunk of money down to earn a lot more back. Sometimes you win, sometimes the odds are against you...
I actually believe APA will still make a substantial profit out of all this. They simply need to keep what shares they can and the value should appreciate over the next year or so giving a healthy capital gain.
What there were after however was at least a billion dollars in liquid asset - THIS YEAR.
I feel they espied an undervalued entity.
Made an initial bid and the directors rejected it.
Made a deal to line the directors pockets should the bid succeeded and upped the anti; the directors then agreed.
So they made a bid on undervalued shares at a rate somewhere between the existing market value and the 'real' value.
Then what happened?
They miscalculated public sentiment; something that is generally not much of an issue in most profit making exercises such as this.
They also were not aware of the imminent substantial increase in the value aussie dollar against the greenback; this made the shares worth a lot more to hang on to for multinational investment corporations.
The across the board increase in the overall value of shares on the ASX since the bid was first made also was not expected ... so if you sell to APA then where do you invest your freed funds on a bull market?
APA varied the bid in an effort to entice more in; unsuccessfully.
I wonder what Bob Mansfield will be doing this time next year? (Let alone a few well paid QF Employees)
