"Given they hold 19.9%, they can also make changes to...

"Given they hold 19.9%, they can also make changes to management/board, and slowly acquire more shares over the years to come under the "creep" provisions. Time is on Svava's side."

Slow creep provision is 3% every 6 months so to get to the 90% compulsory takeover point would require acquiring 71% more of the company, so bit over 11.5 years of buying if they go that path!

So, unless a glaring issue is found in due diligence, they will be making an offer. They are not a management company building a stake to re-organise the company and profit. Guessing they assumed that Bell had done the leg work and found no issues so it was an educated gamble to grab the 18.8% without having done due-diligence themselves.

They have raised US$79m over the last few years so they seem to have solid support behind them, but the takeover is A$65m / US$40m so is a fair chunk of that raising. Based on that I am guessing they will need to get some more cash to finalise the deal, but I would assume that was locked in before they grabbed the 18.8%.

Bell could still come with a counter-counter-counter-counter-offer, but it would surprise me, though they would still get value from it, as madamswer states, at a higher price. I doubt Svava would block the takeover by Bell if they do come back with a higher price than Svava are willing to offer as locking up A$12m in shares in a company whose price would drop a fair chunk if the takeover does not happen is not really the gameplay for an emerging fintech like Svava.

As for Svava making money by selling to a higher bidder, possible, but I doubt it. I would assume the groups that did the off-market at 28c have provisions in any agreement that they would get any increase in price of the tabled offer, but they may have forgone that for the cash upfront.