The more I look at this the more I think Carsales comes in with a bid here. We know they've been stalking the business for years and have attempted to buy it on at least one occasion but were turned away by Catcha. From the outside looking in, it then looks like they did everything possible to suppress the SP price in order to put pressure on Catcha and the business (stepping off the board... failing to subscribe to rights issues... moving the business to financial assets held for sale on the balance sheet... omitting it from their presentations). Carsales M&A strategy looks to be guided by the philosophy of EPS accretive deals only and they have may have been waiting for iCar to reach profitability which has taken longer than anticipated. However judgment day has been forced upon them by Autohome and we will see what their true feelings about the business are either way. If they do like the assets I doubt they will walk away without a fight however they don't have a large enough stake anymore to block a deal. If they do have questions about the business and the markets they operate in and thus decide that 50c is a decent exit price (this would be about breakeven for Carsales on their investment) maybe that should be a signal to other shareholders as these guys will know the assets more intimately.
ICQ Price at posting:
44.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
