Ann: Hughes signs Heads of Agreement to acquire J, page-4

re: Ann: Hughes signs Heads of Agreement to a... Great minds and all of that. It's tough to make a firm call on this without knowing how the core business has been performing and what its outlook is.
I'm totally ok with using the debt to expand. Note this only goes ahead on Westpacs confirmation. If it's good enough for Westpac then that gives some comfort around LTM performance and expectations for both companies.
Also like the requirement to retain key personnel - crucial for smaller companies like this. Same goes for the '2-way due diligence' - speaks to target being invested in the ongoing business, not cashing out entirely.
Some speculation: Outside of bubble conditions, which I don't think we're in, my experience is that it's not often you can use scrip for an acquisition priced at a premium to current market. To me this says the target has some inkling of how Hughes has been travelling over the past 12 months and is comfortable taking that price as they see it as cheap. Does that make sense to anyone else?
All good stuff but I'm still a hold until I see the FY.