pre-open - big order?, page-25

Hi Lucky,

Can't see why anyone that's interested should "want to make themselves known" - until they're ready with an offer. I've got no real idea what's going on with the cross trades.

Re Kalahari... obviously any T/O would have to be negotiated & agreed. It couldn't be forced through without the agreement of the major holders: URU, EML & Blakeney. Coronet & RIO together could probably block it. Maybe it is under discussion right now. ;0)

The reason I'm focussing on Kalahari is this. Let's suppose you want to make an offer for Extract. Who do you need to get agreement from? Well, your offer certainly won't succeed without Kalahari's agreement. Whether that means an offer for Kalahari first remains to be see. It's a possibility but not a certainty.

...which leads on to a theory concerning all the cross trades. In my past experience of Dattels, he tends to work with a number of hedge/investment funds, who use their capital to acquire stock in companies he's interested in. IF by any wild chance Dattels has reached agreement with a third party ("the bidder") on a price for Extract... then all those hedgies transfer their holdings to the bidder (that'd be the X-trades), who also hoovers up any loose EXT stock... Final piece of the jigsaw... the bidder announces that URU, EML and Blakeney back its offer (that's ~35% of Kalahari's votes), Hohnen accepts... job's a good 'un (as we say over here). The bidder suddenly has control (or commitments from s/hs) over a majority of Extract stock (including Kalahari's 40%), making its offer hard to resist.

As I mentioned previously... we're in for an interesting week or two - but this is only a theory and a somewhat off-the-wall one. We'll see.

A question for you ASX experts: at what level of holding does a new holder have to issue a "becoming a substantial holder" notice? How quickly do they have to do this after acquiring shares?

Cheers,

Mark

PS worth noting that Weill, recently appointed to the Boards of KAH, URU and NWT is a founding partner of one of those funds: Chiliogon Partners (http://www.chiliogon.com/aboutus/details.cfm?person=David%20de%20Jongh%20Weill ). If they have a holding it could be under nominee a/cs and/or names that have no obvious association.