Dear Ben
Many thanks for your kind words, and I'm pleased that my comments have been helpful. I would also like to acknowledge good work done by others, especially username123 and Williamteddy. This is a valuable discussion forum: even if people disagree it’s good to have the material widely debated.This is particularly important given the IBC's capitulation on 11 December and in the Second Supplementary Target’s Statement on 20 December. These documents focus almost entirely on bid process and short term considerations. It may well be that Kin will have a challenging FY24, and that the share price might fall (in the short term) if Kin doesn’t reach 90%. However, the IBC failed to discuss the powerful and obvious counter-argument: Kin and RG are the most knowledgeable of all parties regarding PGH’s prospects: if RG is so keen to buy at 84c, why sell? Why not co-invest with him at 84c in PGH’s presumably bright future? And if PGH does need to invest more equity into PGH to improve its future, why not also do so, alongside him.
I accept that the IBC can’t provide a daily commentary on the bid, but its capitulation and subsequent silence have been unhelpful to the minority. Too often target cos (and especially their professional directors) focus far too much on the legal and regularity process of a takeover, in the bid defence, rather than looking at the big picture and longterm commercial pros and cons. This is often also true of independent “experts” who end up nitpicking about the contradictions within “not fair but reasonable” and thereby implicitly give comfort to the bidder, not the target.
