I'm more inclined to think that it's because the independent expert's report is a game-changer.
The company would already have prepared the takeover Scheme Booklet with a place to put in a bullet-point summary of the independent expert's report. In the ordinary course of events they would have added the bullet points, sent the thing to ASIC for approval, and possibly released an announcement to say "independent expert's report received, booklet submitted to ASIC". They could have had this done on Friday morning.
The fact that it hasn't happened leads me to believe that the independent expert is of the opinion that the takeover deal is
not in shareholders' best interests. In this case there would be a flurry of work to do:
- Look through the report in detail to make sure there are no errors of fact, no calculation errors, etc that might change the opinion if corrected.
- Possible revisions to the content of the scheme booklet to change all the parts referring to the support of the board, if the board decides to withdraw support.
- Lots of consultation with Pfizer along the lines of "we no longer support the deal as it stands", and "do you want to withdraw the offer or increase it or change it in some other way?"
The longer this draws on the more significant the changes will be to the deal.
I for one look on this as a promising development.
(20min delay)