I'm personally still struggling with how to interpret the 15%...

I'm personally still struggling with how to interpret the 15% placement. It's a very unusual move to get a big chunk of the company at the same time as making an offer for it, don't you think?
Of course, it is a very advantageous position for them simply from the price they were able to get the placement with. At 1.5c, that's like them going back in time to buy those shares at the price before the offer was made!

Did SVM buy that placement because they think that their offer would be beaten?

Let's try to think in their shoes.
I don't think that they could've offered much more than 3c in this initial offer because our VWAP really was very low when the offer was made. How could they justify to their own SHs that they offered a 200% premium over VWAP to acquire a microcap like us?

So, their offer price is nothing more than a function of the VWAP of CLA. It is as mispriced as what the market has been mispricing CLA at (suppression and all!), and completely does not reflect the intrinsic value of CLA.

SVM probably realized this, and figured that other potential buyers would not be restricted like they were by the old VWAP. They could start their bids higher because once SVM's bid is made public, it would result in a higher VWAP on CLA.