I'm surprised news of the OneVue agreed bailout bid by IRESS...

I'm surprised news of the OneVue agreed bailout bid by IRESS (which I only heard about tonight) hasn't had any impact on XPL today. With a couple of senior age major shareholders, signs of a turnaround, significantly cheap mkt capitalisation considering its FUA and compared with its peers, it must surely be right up there as a target in the "consolidation" stakes.

if IRESS is ready to buy a potential can of worms like OVH for over $100m, surely picking up a more straightforward set of businesses that comprise XPL for say $45m-60m would make sense. Although I would have thought a PPS or HUB or Netwealth would gain the greater synergies. These days its relatively easy to bulk transfer to a new platform, which is the logical consolidation to do. IRESS are not actually in that platform space, despite flirting with it during the Linear days.

There is some growing interest in XPL amongst the bargain hunters on hotcopper, but so far it seems no smaller company insto has put up its hand - trading has been a standoff with minimal turnover most days.

The tight register ensures any bid would require major shareholders' approval to be successful. I can't imagine a bid below 20c being successful, thats still only around $60m valuation.