we have jorn, page-61

'Merge not likely IMO, and even if it was, many mant years away.'

why is it then that exergen have been taking legal advice for the last 12 months from one of Melbourne's better known M&A lawyers, Andrew Komesaroff?

http://komlegal.com/main/page_our_clients.html

Maybe it was just about the JV that exergen did with MNM. Which would fit your thesis.

But note the curious presence on that client list of William Adams Pty Ltd and Elphinstone Pty Ltd.

These two companies are the cashed up investment vehicles of Dale Elphinstone - also a director of exergen, and probably its principal money backer as the exergen 4 tpd pilot plant is very near to Dale's home town of Burnie.

The only reason I can imagine that the Elf would getting advice from the same lawyer as exergen is if he plans to take a sizable stake in the floated exergen business, and it is to be held by either (or both) of William Adams and Elphinstone Pty Ltd.

That would make sense. These companies banked $132 million last year when Kerry Stokes bought them out of the National Hire business after a nice barney about the terms.

That money is still sitting waiting to be deployed as far as I know, and the Komesaroff clue is all I have been able to find about where it may be headed. Elphinstone is a business builder. He will want to put that cash to work, and he will know very well the scale of the opportunity that exergen has in his capacity as the owner of caterpillar dealerships on the East Coast.

You would not expect MNM to be on that client list because they will have to be separately advised in any merger talks.

This is all just speculation of course.

But my take is that we will know the full extent of the mnm/exergen plan by the end of 2012 - after the S7 allocation and the closure of the Govt Grant scheme.

the SP in the meantime can do what it pleases, and will no doubt be 'managed' as it has been for the last 8 months.