1 - Centuarus WANTS SBL and its Gold not stock in Lion. Looking at the Centaurus website and a few articles about Centaurus I get the impression they are a very focused operation, cashed up and like to be in control. Not at the mercy of some other party.
To buy SBL shares to then exchange them for 1 lion share for every 34 SBL shares they hold, which Lion have to issue, which shareholders have yet to ratify, will mean approximately 10% extra shares issued to carry out their bid offer, which undoubtedly will cause Lion shares to drop to some degree, which if all goes ahead by the March closing date followed by the issue of shares in Lion approximately 1-2 months after the bid closes as per the first bidders statement, has way to many variables IMO to look enticing to Centaurus to make a few dollars maybe.
If Centaurus wants a stake in Lion A much cleaner way to get both lions assets and SBL exposure would be to sit back and wait for Lion to takeover SBL, let their shares drop 10% or so and just buy a chuck of Lion.
2 - Centuarus have picked up 6% shares with CASH on the open market in a matter of weeks. Something Lion have failed to do in 3 months as they have NO Free cash. They only have Infiniti - Directors and about 4% of shareholders who have commited to an embarrassingly low bid.
3 - Centaurus can easily pick up the extra 100 million odd shares they need for a 10% blocking stake for about 1.5 -1.7 million dollars. Not a problem to a cashed up company. If they do that they are in a position to stop SBL from going off the Australian Stock exchange as there is no chance of Lion getting 90% especially when there are currently about 68% of the issued stock in our hands as a group and quiet obviously a very high percentage of the SH are totally disgruntled with the embarrassing and arrogant offer on the table. Those that have wanted to go have already gone to the dark side.
Centaurus can easily see this from SH opinions as expressed on HC and similar forums.
4 - A 10% stake in SBL would surely put Centaurus in a position to nominate for a position or 2 on the board of directors as the current make up of the board has a MD and CEO who have both ZERO shares in the company as they have already sold out, plus a couple of Infiniti represenatives. There is plenty of room there for an enthusiastic Director or two.
How much fun would that be to see ?
5 - That is only the starting point IMO as Centuarus obviously see great potential in SBL as does the large majority of SH holding the 68% of the shares in the middle of this fight.
This is just my humble opinion based on a little bit of reading between the lines from a positive presentation by Centaurus in their web site as opposed to the spin and total lack of meaningful information coming out of the SBL and Lion camps.
