elders needs to comment on takeover talk, page-16

GG You could also turn that argument around and say that despite selling of fairly large volumes the price had not dropped that much and was holding @19 to 19.5 so on the close a big seller dumped so that the price would decline significantly as buyers could not react fast enough to come into the bid and that was exactly what it was meant to do drop the price to all time low and has spooked the holders - expect to see many out there today selling as fear grips. Maybe the seller even buys back a whole lot more today at bargain pricing IMO.

The volume that some here quote 40 million well - I looked it up. In the past month and a half we have had 3 days with larger volumes than today. Than the directors buying Ballard could have achieved the same positive result to the market by buying 50000 to 100000 did not have to double his holdings to 1 million with a purchase of 500,000. As much as I dont totally believe in directors being or having perfect timing I must also say I have not seen many times when they have purchased before disaster and certainly not jumping in with another 100K in cash.

Personally I wondered why the results were not better and have a theory or speculative view:

Ruralco is profitable and I think that everything in Elders bar the forestry is profitable. A clue came in the presentation. The CFO was asked about how much company would bleed after all the forestry sales etc - The comments was not answered accurately as I recall and they questioner then asked if the ongoing costs would be about or below $20million to which it was as I recall answered that it was in that region. Tried to verify but the "openbriefing" wont load the audio.

I must say I was a bit shocked that after these sales the company would still have a drain of anything like that. However the performance of the company would make sense if that is the case. It would also make sense that no-one wants to expand too much on that as they are trying to offload the entire division. Then you have Global taking over 12 leases as well which I see as additional to the property they have purchased. Global are IMO opportunistic and at times predator so I dont see them as not having checked that they could not just wait for the administration order and buy at half price.

All of this was concluded around the time Elders received the ATO good news which means IMO that Global were waiting to see so that as Elders now have cash etc they dont wait but buy.

CBA issue notice that someone has acquired 20 million shares that they have to disclose as a significant holding and its come over a period of about 40 days. CBA are very aware of Elders position so dont you think that the person buying also has access to CBA and the views that they would have. So who goes out there and just buys up 20 million shares.

IMO this move in the closing auction makes no sense as the volumes are not that big 5 million could have been fed into the market without the need to dump.

Am I spooked - well I suppose it has had the desired effect I have gone and tried to see where I have not done my homework - The only problem is that most things are looking positive for them and I cannot see the disaster looming.

So I am not a seller unless I can find a valid reason but I bet many of those that entered speculatively at or around the ATO case result may well have been traders that have not had the trading expectation and waited for the results and are dumping as we are in June.