Ardea may be willing/looking to sell a stake in the company as an intermediate step towards strategic partner, and would have a $ value in mind for that based on the project value, not SP. A third party may decide its cheaper to buy that stake on market at this stage.
Option 4 is that we could also be seeing a history repeat moment - I believe Vale and BHP were both major shareholders of Heron in the build up to strategic deal - we could be seeing more than one party in the race with ARL now. If one entity grabbed all those Heron options off market, it would have given them a big head start in building a strategic position, and means someone else has to play catch up
ARL Price at posting:
69.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)