At $6 per share back in early 2007 ROK was massively overpriced on takeover speculation in a bull market. ROK's EPS peaked in FY05 at 29c (2004 was boosted by cashcard sale). For FY07 EPS had fallen to 20c, which goes to show prior management were not that great. ROK's earnings per share peaked 2 years before the top of the market. At $6 per share, even using peak EPS back in 2005 you get a PE of over 20.
MYS might be trying to buy ROK a bit on the cheap but ROK has proven prior to and after the GFC that is was of insufficient scale to compete in the banking industry.
A bidding war with either WBB, BEN or SUN could see this go for maybe $3.35 which is around 1.4x book value but if no other bid emerges ROK shareholders should just be happy that they got a bid at all to stop the bleeding
ROK Price at posting:
$2.71 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
