There seems to be a view being promoted by some that somehow...

There seems to be a view being promoted by some that somehow COE's bid for IPM has turned out to be something other than another failed exercise by COE.

Let's review the facts: COE has been stuck with a holding of under 27%, they cannnot increase their holding at all for close to 3 months and cannot begin another takeover attempt for close to 6 months. They know that 13.5% of IPM shareholders refused to even contemplate their last attempt, and that a third party apparently hostile to them has entered the resistry with a blocking vote. All this at a time of great volatility and uncertainty.

So how much control does COE have over IPM and how wise is it for a junior oiler to be stuck holding under 27% of another, uncooperative, junior oiler?

Here is what AGL's CEO, Michael Fraser, said of his company's decision to sell their 22% stake in QGC (in Saturday's Fin Review):

"What I've been doing is tidying up the ship. If you look at the QGC piece, it was imperfect and we'd said that a lot to the market, that owning a stake in a listed company where we had no control over the direction of the resource was not a position we wanted to be in".

Note that Mr Fraser was brought to AGL after Paul Anthony was removed for lacking a clear strategy that had some chance of success.

So what does the current boss of COE know about running a successful resource company that the current management of AGL doesn't?