Ann: Non-Binding Indicative Proposal Received at $1.28 Per Share, page-40

Agreed Robomo, and whilst the market is a broad term, my feeling is that the buying has predominantly been by 'informed' or 'smart money' investors simply because of the volumes and size of transactions recently. Until the proposed Offer announcements MFD had been relatively illiquid, not a high volume trading stock at all, but since the Offers were announced volume has increased appreciably. That's unlikely to be mum and dad investors.

From an investor point of view, at the current price of $1.39, and based simply on historical earnings (ie PRIOR TO the 2 Nov 2022 announced significant upgrade of current year earnings) MFD is trading on a P/E of 11.3 and dividend of 3.8% fully franked. Those numbers will improve substantially based on the upgrade, and who's to know, maybe that guidance to the upgrade has been conservative - I'm sure that the board would have been very careful with that upgrade, especially since apparently the company had (in the company's words)
"As at the date [1 Dec 2022] of this announcement, Mayfield has received confidential approaches (Proposals) from multiple parties expressing interest in acquiring the Company and has been in discussions with these parties in the context of maximising shareholder value."

The board clearly would not have wanted to be seen to be excessive with its guidance upgrade with the potential for future litigation, and also the fact that an 'insider' ultimately put out the first Offer proposal (at a paltry $1.28!).

My feeling is that the share price should be trading closer to $2.00 based on those above-noted facts alone. Thus I'm not concerned if either or both of the existing Offers fell over, I'd prefer MFD continue to trade as a separate ASX listed company in its own right, until the broader market wakes up to its real worth.