new strategic direction and repositioning of meo, page-8

Hey tonik

Thanks - I enjoy reading your posts.

Imho something is not worth what you paid for it, or what you think it is worth, or what someone else thinks (or writes) what it is worth, however, something is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. The classic line packer used was you only ever get one Alan bond in your life....

The selling of TS LNG and TSMP projects is the game changer for meo. There is, imho, no way any investor is going to pay half a billion dollars for TS. The TS value realisation announcement peaked a sp peak of mid 8s and quickly ran out of puff...

So what will be in the deal and how much will be the price? Splitting the two might sound nice in theory but from a legal perspective very messy - how would two independent parties manage tslng and tsmp separately - sorry but is not going to happen - the risk profile on that dd would be fire engine red.

When the bean counters run there fingers over ts the most logical view is a TO of meo. why? There is several hundred million in capital tax right offs that would be transferable. That alone is a big risk for all employees of meo!!! So a TO offer of $0.20 would see a market cap of circa $175 million. Issue for eni is that 50% holding of Blackwood may and I repeat may preclude eni from a TO - posters will say this cannot not happen but unless you have seen the JV contract then there are no guarantees.

I would prefer no TO and still get circa $125m for TS - meo can throw heron and blackwood in as part of the deal as that is part of the strategic repositioning of meo - searching for the hidden gems like beehive. $140 n the bank and we reset back to circa $0.20 with a mantra 'meo never sole drills any well ever'.

If eni does decide to take up heron and/or Blackwood then this will complicate matters for meo as eni has called meo's bluff. Luckily for meo, heron and Blackwood are just noise in the deal as eni has a massive asset called ES and eni is keen to fast track the to market process. eni have done meo a lot of favours re drilling and testing both heron and Blackwood. eni, imho, will be pragmatic - let's just hope JH remains in the departure lounge and the chairman gets us all a good idea by re-doubling his efforts.

If a deal can be done it will be very interesting how long it will take to an asx announcement can be made. If JH gets up at the agm this year and says that Santa is coming early we will all know what to think...

adl