""An Eastern Star Gas placement to institutional investors in...

""An Eastern Star Gas placement to institutional investors in August last year would have diluted Santos, so it would have had to buy more than 1 per cent of Eastern Star to get to 20.97 per cent""

sf120,

STO did not buy more than 1% of ESG shares to reach the 20.97% holdings in ESG.
For, if they did, STO would have had to announce it to the market as soon as possible. As the increased holding was below the 1%, they didn't say anything until the March Investor presentation.

Cheers.