They could do it easily and it is a legitimate avenue, albeit a tawdry and shoddy way to do it but sadly rather common amongst some ASX listers as is some other low-brow tactics. Whether it is in their psyche or not is another matter.
Personally I think the current offer isn't bad given they paid $8 in 2014 for WCB and have paid no dividend since then so its not a ytield play and are offering a 25% premium on where the price has been since last year.
Yes I know the price has been up around $9.60 and I don't know what folks have paid for the share since the take-over as this one fell off my radar after the take-over was declared in 2014 and it only leapt out of the blocks this morning with a decent gap between the off-market offer announced at around 9am and the on-market opening price. Volumes have been so low since the take-over offer it got very little visibility and really Saputo (and WCB) have very carefully stayed out of the media since then as well.
WCB Price at posting:
$8.85 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held