georisk - My wife is a teacher and rather than blame the...

georisk - My wife is a teacher and rather than blame the education system, I'd blame the helicopter parents who seem to hassle teachers about every single aspect of their darling's education.

That whinge aside, I do find it difficult to see the post takeover entity having a share price at $1 anytime soon. It'd take a large increase in the gold price and a belief that the rise was sustainable. And/or a huge, and I do mean huge, amount of exploration success.

The two entities are now worth about $3.15bn combined and the "known knowns" would now be pretty factored into analysts models.

As such, I reckon it's a bit of a stretch to think that the mere completion of the takeover will see the market capitalisation virtually double. Maybe it'll rise a bit when the index-huggers have to buy it but it's hard to see it doubling.

What seems to have been overlooked in recent posts is that it's the market capitalisation of a company that's critical.

If the market thinks a company is worth $4bn, it doesn't really matter if it has 10 billion shares on issue trading at 40c a pop, or 500 million shares trading at $8.00.

If someone gives me a dollar by way of 5 x 20c coins or 2 x 50c coins, it's the same outcome. I'm not better off financially by having 5 coins in my hand rather than 2.