Ann: Sayona Expands Tansim Project with New Acquisition, page-46

Totally agree Split. And whatever cliche you wish to use , they are definitely looking and searching for value at the bottoming end of this cycle. Is their real intent being to ' Flush ' a higher bid so as to benefit their own shareholders and investment returns from the market - or is their motive more financial in searching for ' replacement ' growth and/ or even perhaps tax driven to some degree given the potential changes to Franking regulations should there be a change of Government later this month.

In my mind it has to be more strategic than meets the eye , as why else would you want to acquire only 50% of an asset. At the very least it will force the hand of SQM in the Australian Lithium Market. Will be interesting to see as to what might happen following the exclusivity period ends on 22nd May as per one of the quoted conditions of the ' Friendly Scheme of Arrangement ' as follows:-

" to undertake exclusive confirmatory due diligence (the Exclusivity Period). The Exclusivity Period will run to Wednesday, 22 May 2019 and will be extended automatically to Wednesday, 29 May 2019 if Wesfarmers confirms the commercial terms of the Proposal and that its due diligence condition has been satisfied by Wednesday, 22 May 2019. "

Interesting that these dates also just happen to coincide with the outcome of the Federal Election as well.

Remember also that the ' Scheme ' will also have to be sorted out with SQM as per another condition in the offer ( below ) - and hence the possibility of a counter Bid coming from the SQM camp as well.

" Wesfarmers and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) entering into an agreement to document certain commercial matters relating to the joint venture and marketing arrangements that have been agreed in principle and would apply if Wesfarmers acquires Kidman "

Its equally interesting that they have purposely fallen under the 20% takeover threshold with only initially acquiring 17.26 %. Does this leave the door open for them to trump a counter bid and go full throttle into an ' On Market Bid ' As we all should know ; the present offer being based on a Scheme has typically an all or nothing outcome. What this really meanis is that the bidder has certainty that it will either reach 100% ownership if the scheme is approved or not acquire any target shares under the scheme if it is not approved .

The other factor to consider is the fact that is more difficult to make changes to the terms of a scheme ( such as increasing the consideration in response to a rival offer ) than under a takeover bid. Changes in terms generally require Court approval , an ajournment of scheme meeting , as well as supplementary disclosures

In regards to both KDR and LYC , I keep scratching my head though as I keep returning back to their most recent financial statements. For example in LYC case , they're last financial statements as at 31st December 2018 showed they had accumulated losses of a staggering $917,317,000 while KDR had a total of $60,098,536 in total accumulated losses carried forward in their accounts.

However and in stark contrast WES coincidentally reported a $1.08 Billion dollar net profit from its continuing operations. Not a bad catch if you can secure these sorts of losses against your additional $4.538 billion dollar profit from the sale and de-merger of your discontinued operations and at the same time hitch your wagon to the next rising stars by leveraging yourself into a sweet ' replacement ' of these former assets by switching into these new growth prospects which just happen to be bouncing along a rather ' contrived ' bottom in the present market.

One thing is for sure and that is that we can all take comfort in the fact that Wesfamers has had a particular keen eye for these sorts of things over the years , and I reckon it no mistake that this ' Conglomerate ' Behemoth is now valued at some $40 Billion dollars in market capitalization.

So with approximately 495,000 shareholders which have been returned $2.00 per share via ordinary and special dividends following the de-merger of their former assets - that would put them with approximately $2 Billion dollars left for further opportunistic acquisitions should both the LYC and KDR takeovers end up going ahead. That would essentially then conclude the redeployment of the $4 Billion profit from the discontinued operations. So I don't reckon we've seen the last of this investment ' foray ' into the lithium sector - in Australia or Canada.

In so far as Australia , TI guess the ultimate question then remains as to who in the basket of equivalent Australian Top Companies will potentially follow a similar template and try to emulate WES on this very ambitious path. Could it be MQG ......or heck even WOW as they may be still reeling from their late and failed attempt to match up against WES with their failed Masters operations. Perhaps this will finally get BHP and or RIO up and about ....or even FMG or MIN.

Either way , these are very interesting times indeed and as you can imagine , I personally have thrown a blanket of positions over a number of companies in this sector with SYA being only a relatively small position in comparison.

GLTAH however you all see these recent developments unfolding this ever evolving Lithium Sector......