Is this the start of the auction?

As some posters have already pointed out, the new Pfizer offer of 20.8 is 0.1 more than previous offer.
this is not only odd, but could well be significant- I think it highly likely that a counter offer of 20.8 had either been received officially ( but more likely unofficially) by another party. Testing Pfizer's resolve I suspect.
if as I believe this is what is happening, then it maybe a different structure - ie not a 'scheme'

and if there is another player involved, we can be assured that there are probably other suitors waiting in the wings

the next couple of weeks will be very interesting

as my post a couple of months ago, my algorithms showed that 24.5c would be the number to get to the conditions precedent - of course other players in the game will blow this prediction out of the water