It is interesting..Peter Diamond seems to have sold about 20% of...

It is interesting..Peter Diamond seems to have sold about 20% of his large holding, most of that occurring two days ago.

Presumably Peter is acting independently of Atturra. We can reflect on how Atturra will be viewing this.

I’m becoming increasingly more confident (but not 100% convinced) that Atturra has been accumulating Spirit with a view to launching a takeover at some point.
They will be delighted to see that a major shareholder appears to be offloading, which may push the share price back down to a level which will make it much easier for them to offer a substantial takeover premium.

Atturra need not hurry. They can sit on their hand for a bit and wait to see how this plays out. But I think that at some point in the next 6 months or so, they will more likely than not move to take over Spirit. That seems the most likely explanation for their sudden accumulation of just under 20% of the stock, and is consistent with their recent capital raising “for acquisitions”.

I’m guessing we might see downward pressure on the share price if Peter Diamond looks to further reduce, followed by a bit of a bonanza later on.

Of course, the obvious criticism of my theory is that Peter is no fool, and if there is a “bonanza” in the wings, then why is he offloading? It seems he doesn’t believe in it, and he would presumably be well placed to know stuff.

In short, it seems to me that one of the two actors (Atturra or Peter) is taking actions that I find difficult to explain or understand from a perspective from rationality. But I don’t know which of the two is acting in a seemingly irrational manner.

Usually, when one can’t make sense of behaviour by rational clever people, it is because there is an “unknown unknown” present. Perhaps that’s the case here. Or perhaps it’s simply a case of Peter taking the opportunity to sell a portion of his holding into a rally while keeping his lion’s share. Even someone like Peter might want to suddenly raise some cash for some other purpose or other. If this is right, his selling might even be done with.

In the meantime, I guess we all just continue to watch and wait, and see how this develops. At least it’s an entertaining show.