I believe shareholders would be crazy not to accept the offer. I...

I believe shareholders would be crazy not to accept the offer. I stated as much in earlier posts of mine that the SP would not be sustained at the level it is at now... no way. By memory, I think I mentioned SP figure of $1 too.

Is the offer a fair one? Who are we to knows?

I think some posters are failing to take into account that it was not Viralytics who paid for the combo trials with Merck, but Merch themselves. No good adding all of VLA's cash in the bank as part of any valuation. Besides which, none of us here could possibly know the "true" value of VLA. All we do know (and need to remind ourselves of) is that trials are extremely expensive. As for the cost of Phase III trials... well... who would want to see VLA back on that merry-go-round???

The notion that the SP was intentionally pushed down from $1.30 to 60c is exactly that... a notion. No one will ever know. My speculation on that one is that shareholders took the opportunity to get out of VLA to look for greener pastures because the last major conference results only confirmed what we already knew... and that is Cavatak is great. The fact that an offer was not forthcoming based on the results to date, either, meant that the success story of VLA had become stale to the stock market. IMO. So, how stale do you think VLA would be now if it got put back on the market?

Is VLA worth $1.75? I would much rather let the experts decide that for me... not the bloody stock market. The latter can be extremely fickle, irrational and can get soooo wrong a lot of the time. I would much rather take $1.75 than be letting Mr Sharemarket tell me what my shares are now worth.

I am with you on this, Stevo... should the retail shareholders miraculously (I might add) vote this down, the SP will drop. I cannot see it staying where it is, let alone go up... simply because the majority of shareholders believe the offer is too low. I believe the "real" market has spoken... the pharmaceutical market (in the absence of a superior offer).

There is a small possibility that BMS will counter bid and that would then put the value of VLA in question. At the end of the day, though, what a pharmaceutical company is prepared to pay is what will determine VLA's current worth in context of the real market.

Had Merck not made the offer, what does one think the shareprice would be today... honestly? Should the offer get knocked back, the SP will undoubtedly slump. To $1 is a reasonable call, 50c not likely... well in a global stockmarket crash? 50c is probably a given! This is by no means, downramping... more of an objective and unemotional take on it. Afterall, do I personally feel that VLA is worth more and would I like the SP offer to be $2.50?... hell, yeah!!! That is why I am hangin' around for the Fat Lady to Sing.... just in case, but not counting on it either.