I don't know whether the Emerald bid is a serious offer. If the...

I don't know whether the Emerald bid is a serious offer. If the market thought the offer was straight I would have expected the price to have improved since the offer was announced but in fact it has stayed the same or fallen slightly. Was as low as 15.5 cents today. Of course the market is never perfect. For people with spare funds, a strong stomach and faith in Emerald/NOP have a good opportunity to pick up shares on market and make 7+ cents by selling into the offer. This only works though if the offer itself works!

GLI now has a varied board with experienced directors from various fields. I doubt very much they will do anything rash. The Chairman, Mark Smith, has been with the company for some time but was only recently made Chairman. He seems to have been a guiding hand steering the company through its recent troubles. In addition two other current directors have long term investment and stockmarket experience 1. Tony Lewis - MD of Lewis Securities Ltd (www.fixedinterest.com.au) and 2. David Franklyn - MD of Entrust Funds Management (www.entrustfm.com.au). The board is also well divided between those who have large shareholdings (Franklyn/Cellante) and those who do not (Smith/Lewis). This ensures that the views of all shareholders are taken into account as opposed to having a board totally dominated by representatives of one shareholder (Emerald/NOP).

I would expect in fact to see released in the next week or so an announcement from GLI that they have sought additional time from ASX. This would be justified by the fact that they have had two attempted board spills in the last six months which certainly would have distracted them from finding a future activity for the company. The current board will all be keen to prevent suspension and I am sure they are doing everything they can.

The credibility of NOP/Emerald is in further doubt as they have announced, wait for it, yet another attempt to spill the board of GLI. This went out on the wire today. This further attempt comes following two unsuccessful attempts to remove the directors and the removal of their nominee Peter Thomas at the last meeting.

For me I prefer the existing board over NOP/Emerald and would not want to be locked in after accepting a partial offer. I understand that everyone will make their own decision based on their situation and feelings about the whole matter. I am just putting in my two cents worth.

To me Emerald/NOP conjures up images of the headless chicken running around after its head has been cut off. They have gone from offering just one shareholder, Challenger, 27 cents a share to then buying the Challenger holding for 21 cents a share plus escalations. Then after failing a second time to sack the board they announce a partial bid at 23 cents. Before the ink is even dry on the bid announcement they go for a third board spill. To me it smacks of someone desparately trying to seize control at any cost. I cannot help being nervous as to what would happen to GLI under their management.

Mad max you could be right. If the bid looked like succeeding the best bet could be to accept for 35% and then dump the rest of the holding on market. I think I would seriously consider that if the bid looked like it was going to go through and deliver control to Emerald/NOP.