$$$, page-17

:) Yep, he sure will be a real billionaire.

I'm not sure WHC rejected the offer- here is what the company said. They just said they'd review it. If he didn't have his finance then, and doesn't have it all now, there wasn't much to accept or reject.

$500m is not too much... or maybe it is. Everyone is calling this a $5b offer (or 5 buck share price), so he is 10% short. He's used mezzanine finance before, so he might be up for it again.

And yeah, you're right- he probably will use the $3.70 figure that the SP was before news of the potential offer came about.

When people say a SP is falling therefore it doesn't look as if an offer will come, I disagree: share prices have to fall for an offer to look reasonable- particularly when this one is so close to the wire.

$5 may not seem a lot, but conditions have changed. PPT gotoffe3red $80 per share, knocked it back, and now PE is casting rumours that it might take PPT out for $30. Times change. Poor old Macarthur Coal was taken down to withering levels before it got bought. This looks kind of similar, but we have a target. This takeover looks more plausible than most.