Potential 2nd bidders often try to accumulate shares first after...

Potential 2nd bidders often try to accumulate shares first after an initial bidder. When a company is about to make the first bid this doesn’t tend to happen as much as they don’t want to push the price up too much before they make a bid. In fact often a share price is suppressed and push downwards before a bid is made to try to make a bid premium look even bigger. This may have even occurred with ESS before the initial bid. This is Not the case with second bidders as you can’t really push the price down as there is already a bid in place.