Ann: ST1 announces rejection of non-binding indicative proposal, page-11

I'm not so sure on that. The EV/EBITDA ratio for Spirit even at the $0.12 they were trading at pre pump off the back of the rumour was still about 18x which is much higher than the industry standard of 11x.

Even paying 12c a share UWL probably would be overpaying in the conventional sense. At the 18 they jumped to after leaking the offer to the market (in order to secure a loan for their own off market purchase) ST1 are 25x EV/EBITDA.

UWL is of coarse equally overvalued on this metric but at least it can justify the growth based on optimistic outlook on the future with Vaughan and the board and validation in investment from Cornish. ST1 is going backwards with a 77% drop in EBITDA in H1 2019.

ST1 leak the offer to market on Friday causing shares to jump 50%. They then request a trading halt BEFORE announcing offer is rejected to protect the inflated price and leverage that price to perform their own acquisition while stock is in a trading halt. Smells of negotiating in bad faith from the sidelines.