Hi @anatolI believe I have been misreading the signals here from...

Hi @anatol

I believe I have been misreading the signals here from Gina. Your post has helped me a lot. Thank you. For a number of days I couldn't reconcile Gina's strong down ramping of a share she has just invested $880M in. Like many here I incorrectly assumed that she was softening us up for a slightly higher offer and a bidding war with ALB. The problem was her statement that she has never paid anymore than $3 for LTR. This stuck in my mind. I also had a problem with her tactics being so transparent. It was too obvious and this worried me greatly. I have now gone back to my original view that she wants to go mining and refining with us, as she has said a few times BUT she needs to see ALB off first.

To defeat the ALB offer all she has to do is become a director and make a formal proposal to provide assistance to overcome all the issues about KV that she raised. She already has more than 10% and so any can block compulsory acquisition by ALB. IMO ALB will not want to work with Gina and will want 100%. Gina is also close to blocking the full ALB offer going through. Further who knows how many of the other large shareholders will support her and are lurking in other accounts at between 1% and 45. So IMO Gina will threaten ALB to up their bid to say $3.60 or be defeated. She will convince the board that going mining and refining with her support is better than a $3 sale to ALB. That way Gina (and TG and us) get another 20% or she goes mining and refining with us as a large stakeholder. I think the latter is her preferred course but if that fails she still gets an easy $170M plus for a 3 month investment.I couldn’t work out why she was so violently down ramping but the answer is simple, it was a message to us and to ALB that she is not going to bid for LTR and pay more than $3 a share, but that she will either stay and fix these issues and mine and refine with us, or sell to ALB if they offer much more.

Either way she wins. I was a fool for not following my own advice to listen to what she was saying. Her message was that she is not going for a full bid and will pay no more than $3. I am assuming her next move is to get on the board and soak up a few more shares under $3.