new top 20 shareholder list published, page-13

AustinNZ, not sure I agree that "a takeover does not give you much of an advantage over a farmin".

Your comments are based only on Atermis. It has been said many times on here before, so I won't go in to the details of each, but MEO is not just about Atermis - they have many other leads in the NWS, Tassie Shoal and 2 gas finds.

The biggest problem for any suitor would be trying to get MEO for a decent price - it would have to be hostile and probably triple current prices to get control imo. The apparently open share register would help them in some regards.

But for arguments sake, lets say they got MEO for $1. If Atermis is successful, the suitor would have just more than doubled its money on MEO's 20% share of Atermis alone (noting that the company has previously stated their 20% stake would be worth $2+ and that was before the recent upgrade in GIP). And then the rest of their assets are free and the other NWS permits all of a sudden become more prospective too.

Take the worst case where Atermis is unsuccessful - in my view, the others assets alone would justify the $1 price tag (based on successfully implementing their Tassie Shoal strategy and proving up the gas finds).

I agree that an MEO t/o would be considered high risk - but the oil and gas game is just that, high risk. Fact remains that for the majors, a lazy $440m+ to buy all of MEO is not much, so the risk for them might be well worth it if they see value in their other assets as the contingency plan if non of their NWS assets bear fruit.

Like I said earlier, I don't think they won't get it for $1 though - they're probably more likely to pay $3.50 if Atermis is a winner.

Just some food for thought.