Australia isn't the middle man - just companies like BAL. China has no intention to transfer wealth to other nations for companies like BAL which are essentially just a marketing and distribution service. They'll pay for the raw material but can develop cheaper and more efficiently than a private co from the ASX can with all its hungry shareholders.
It really does appear that China want to gain all the economic profit's from importing milk. Blocking BAL's license first, then blocking the license of BAL's takeover target.
BAL will be brought to their knees and forced to negotiate terms with China where we will then see either
-a large transfer of wealth to China in exchange for license; or
-BAL goes under with a large transfer or wealth to China who pick up the pieces.
Hopefully BAL can land option 1 with some value remaining for shareholders. But I just can't see how BAL can command a $700mil market cap when they are totally dependent on the decisions of foreign authorities who play a different game to us here. Think you can just buy another company to get around China's decision? Think again. Perhaps BAL will take them to court now?
BAL Price at posting:
$6.74 Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held