And the ' Math ' sometimes can get a little bit more...

And the ' Math ' sometimes can get a little bit more complicated. But in the absence of any NEWS , we can often interpret other angles from other causation of events.

And one of these ' causation ' of events would be the recent unusual high level of activity in the conversion of the ' Long Dated ' ' Unlisted Options. O.K .....so not only are we seeing the conversions of the general issued ' Unlisted ' and ' long dated ' stock options , we are now seeing the consecutive conversions of the ' Unlisted ' Employes / Staff ' long dated ' stock options.

And there could be another couple of solid reasons for these somewhat unusual coincidences. Obviously , there is someone who now knows something internally - that's s a given. O.K so assuming there is some ' trigger ' event which is likely to occur or looming in the background.....or even suspected to be.

Obviously in the scenario , and while the ' Unlisted ' options remain ' Unlisted ' , it is difficult to ascribe a value other than to say they are worth the QUANTITY you have times the 8 , 12 , or 15 cents being whatever the conversion price happens to be. So even though the current share price is higher , uncertain , and /or moving around all the time , it is difficult to put a value on something which the MARKET is unable to value in the same of a ' Company Traded 'option whereby the option will ascribe a ' Time Value ' premium for the implied time to expiry . In this case this is somewhere between 6 months and an astonishing 2 years. So why then this ' across the board ' rush to convert these options.

Well there is certainly another reason which could also explain this unusual phenomenon and that would be that the ' inside ' thinking is that there is a high probability of Corporate Activity , and that depending on where this might be emanating from is that any such play could involve aN ' All-Stock ' offer , or indeed a ' Stock plus Cash ' offer. In either case , and lets say the potential acquirer is a non-domiciled Foreighn acquirer , it could mean that while under either of these scenarios , the underlying strike price would remain the same , the QUANTITY to which the holder might end up with could potentially and drastically be diminished , and potentially more vulnerable to the vagaries and sentiments of other markets outside of your immediate control.

And in the event of any of these hypothetical situations unfolding , there is the added concerns of the ' time it might take ' to resolve the ' Offer ' and ' Acceptances ' periods given the heightened levels of foreigh ownership and control scrutiny by the Australian FIRB. And on a larger scale , welve recently seen just how long this process can take with the Elanco / Bayer animal health transaction which has taken the better part of over a year to conclude.

In any evenT , it would seem that the holders of these ' Unlisted ' options for whatever reasons would seem to SHARE the view that a ' Bird in Hand ' is worth perhaps more in terms of converting to shares NOW , than say LATER .

And while I have seen this type of activity precede takeovers in the past , one can't help sighting the more recent ' redomiciliation ' event surrounding Benetec ( ASX: BLT ) and the conversion to Benectec Biopharma Inc. ( NASDAQ: BNTC )

So not saying that the BLT scenario is necessarily a risk to PAA given the current composition of its current share register , however it is a good point to remind ourselves that with respects to Options , unless they are converted to shares , they do NOT attract or count as a VOTE. So in ALL these options being converted - this amounts to approximately 4 - 5 % which could be in effect ADDED to previous balances in forming a convenient ' Blocking Stake '.....