What happened to the $1.12 valuation back in October, page-6

It's called an auction. IMO, selling ESS here is like selling WGO after the first bid - don't do it!
I reckon MIN/Ganfeng are highly likely to counterbid as others have stated - they are the natural owners and they have even more firepower than IGO/Tianqi. And of course there's a chance that someone like WES/SQM or even LTR or PLS have a look. Personally, I'm lucky to have $$ to load up  and one of my core stragegies is Merger Arb. @2ic brought back some great CDV memories in a recent post. I was long CDV going into the first bid just like now with ESS, and I loaded the boat after that bid. I've never made more $$ on a single trade than on that CDV trade and am confident I'll do well again here with ESS.