"Any company making an indicative offer and subsequently negotiating on that should have had any approvals required from their Board prior to kicking any tyres"
This is a reasonable point... but something that has been hinted at in the company announcements might be relevant here. Perhaps the farminee had the approvals necessary for the joint venture for artemis, but the deal suddenly got a whole lot bigger than they anticipated... and expanded to include other projects as well? In that case, if the size of the investment changed considerably, additional board approval may have been required which brought about this delay. If that is the case, I think MEO have been sensible in making allowances for the farminee that offers the greatest long-term benefit to the company.
In addition, management have also made sure that should the deal with the preferred farminee fall through, they have the capital to commit to drilling immediately and can then simply invite the runners-up back to the table for further negotiation.
MEO Price at posting:
43.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
