where have the commodities investors gone?

For the market watchers amongst us, you would have seen that Hanlong Investments have made two conditional take over offers for junior miners in the last few days -
1. BMN ($0.612/share); and
2. SDL ($0.50/share).

If you had trusted equity markets for either stock, and I keep hearing that the 'market is always right', you would have seen the following in the lead up to these offers -
1. BMN get sold off from 89.5c in Jan-11 to a low of 20.5c in Jun-11 post Japan earthquake; and
2. SDL get sold off from 62c in Jan-11 to 30.5c in Jun-11 due to Greek debt.
These preceding weak moves by equity holders of both stocks have opened the door for longer-term sovereign investors who see the strategic value of holding commodity deposits to make some low ball offers with a decent chance of success. In both circumstances Hanlong has not, for instance, had a panic attack about Greek sovereign debt or the US debt ceiling posturing.

In both cases, longer-term investors in these stocks have a right to feel aggrieved at these offers as they have taken on the significant risk of funding (and de-risking) these deposits during the GFC only to:
- first be shafted by the nervous investors i.e. the ubiqituous 'weak hands'; and
- then potentially being forced to leave significant upside on table due to to low ball offers.

Now I will probably be hounded for being bullish (a great sin on HC it seems) or 'upramping' but if you do not see this pattern of patient Asian investors buying commodity deposits of great promise from impatient ASX investors then you are not paying attention.

AVB is well on the path to potentially developing a commercially viable copper deposit in the world class Carajas province and I would hate for us longer-term holders to see significant upside left on the table by being forced to accept a low-ball offer due to poor retail sales figures and Greek debt impacting sentiment?

We as an investors class may well have lost our way if this keeps happening in the face of unprecedented commodities demand.