Decan - I think it's best if you do crawl back into your hole of...

Decan - I think it's best if you do crawl back into your hole of paranoid delusion until some more FACTS have emerged for you to engage with.

First - while independent experts do generally have a poor reputation, it is a reputation earned in quite different circumstances than the pLT / FER deal. The allegation is that they tend to be far too kind to the company that is paying them - particularly when it is the recipient of a HOSTILE takeover approach. That is where one firm - Lonergan Edwards - carved out its reputation about 7 years ago after Grant Samuel went all coy following the GIO defence debacle, and after a few reports with very generous target valuations, Lonergan Edwards earned the nickname that you mention in your post.

Second - the FER / PLT situation is very unusual as it is a situation where FER neither requires the preparation of an IER (required where there is a director in common between bidder and target, or where bidder has greater than 30% interest in target at time of bid) nor where one would ordinarily be required for strategic purposes (in a HOSTILE bid, an IER is often commissioned to assist with repelling the offeror). Here - FER appears to be commissioning the report because they believe that in all the circumstances it represents good governance and is in the interests of shareholders to have the opportunity to consider the report. This is quite admirable and is rarely seen.