Unbelievable......A condition of the bid is that it has the...

Unbelievable......A condition of the bid is that it has the board's unanimous support.

and... Paradice Investment Management portfolio manager David Paradice, whose firm owns about A$30 million of Coates stock, said he was disappointed with Coates' lack of transparency over the earlier bid and had hoped the latest offer would be put to shareholders.

"The stock's been too volatile with people second guessing what's going on," Paradice said. "They should have put the bid to the shareholders and let us decide."

couldn't have said it any better David!

UPDATE 4-Coates rejects new bid from Carlyle, National Hire
Wednesday September 5, 2007, 6:55 pm
By Michael Smith and Jane Williams

SYDNEY, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Australian equipment hire firm Coates Hire Ltd (ASX: COA.ax) on Wednesday rejected a sweetened A$1.6 billion ($1.3 billion) takeover offer from private equity firm Carlyle Group [CYL.UL] and National Hire Group Ltd (ASX: NHR.ax) saying the bid still undervalued the company.

Coates shares earlier jumped 4.9 percent to A$5.82 after the bid group revealed their improved offer, which equates to A$6.29 a share on an ex-dividend basis.

Coates, which hires out everything from portable toilets to generators to the building, mining and energy sectors, put itself up for sale in June. It last week rejected takeover offers, reported to include one from National Hire and Carlyle, as too low, and said it would focus on growing sales and cutting costs.

"The bid continues to discount the benefit of substantial synergies on the basis of Coates' leading market position, strong geographical footprint and opportunities identified during the (company's) strategic review," Coates said in a statement on Wednesday.

A meeting of Coates non-executive directors unanimously concluded the bid did not justify being recommended to shareholders, Chairman Bill Cutbush said.

A condition of the bid is that it has the board's unanimous support.

"There will be some shareholders putting pressure on the board, but the board seemed pretty set in their views the first time and I don't think they have swayed much," said Austock Securities Craig Stranger prior to the Coates announcement.

Sources familiar with the matter have previously told Reuters that Carlyle and National Hire led the bidding when Coates launched the sale process.

Media reports had said the consortium's original bid was at A$6.25 per share, but the Coates board wanted A$6.50.

Paradice Investment Management portfolio manager David Paradice, whose firm owns about A$30 million of Coates stock, said he was disappointed with Coates' lack of transparency over the earlier bid and had hoped the latest offer would be put to shareholders.

"The stock's been too volatile with people second guessing what's going on," Paradice said. "They should have put the bid to the shareholders and let us decide."

Any bid over A$6.20 would be worth considering, he said.

Coates shares jumped 13.5 percent to $6.24 in May after the company confirmed it had received a number of buyout approaches, but fell as low as A$5 in August after Carlyle's initial offer was rejected.