goodaye,just wanted to make a couple of comments.1. firstly well...

goodaye,

just wanted to make a couple of comments.

1. firstly well done to Nervous and others on all the effort re the "No" vote.

2. i think this was raised before, but in looking at the results of the Schemes below, I noted that wrt the Lend Lease Primelife Scheme t/o, that LL was forced to increase the offer, but they only did that on 1 Dec 2009, with the Scheme meeting actually held on 14 Dec 2009.
ie only 2 weeks before the meeting !!
the Scheme meeting was due to be held on 8 Dec, but because of increase in Offer, the meeting was adjourned until 12 Dec.
At the same time as the increased Offer, LL issued a Supplementery Disclosure and Revised Proposal.

So my point is, that there is still time for an increase from Santos - i was going to say until 2 weeks prior to ESG's meeting, but in fact, it could be any time prior, because STO can apply to Court to get an adjournment, to give s/h time to absorb any increased offer price!

3. out of interest i had another look at a couple of Scheme t/o that I have been involved in, just to get an idea of the s/h participation in the votes.

(a) LL Primelife Scheme there was 10,182 s/h, and Top 20 held 62.45% of # shares. (Dec 2009)
Only 3,013 s/h voted ( only 30%)

(b) Indep Practioners Network (INP) Scheme there 1805 s/h and Top 20 held 93% of shares. (Sept 2008)
Only 294 s/h voted (16% only)

(c) ESG has 9,963 s/h with Top 20 holding 66.25% of shares.
Interestingly, the s/h holding 100,000 or more represent only 465 shareholders and that group hold 86.50% of the total number of shares.

So it shows how much influence the smaller s/h will have in the voting process.

It surprised me that LLP Scheme only 30% voted, and in INP only 16% voted.

So if we assume only 50% of ESG s/h vote, then thats say 5,000 s/h voting.

To get approved, the Scheme needs 50% of s/h voting ie STO needs 2,500 of those ESG s/h who bother to vote.

Now on the ESG forums there are sometimes 400+ views on some posts lately.
Many of the HC posters comment that they have multiple holdings.
So when one adds the HC "viewers" + the multiple holdings, then I could envisage easily 500 "NO" votes there alone! Thats 20% of the required 2500 votes needed to vote down the Scheme.
Then if you add in those "NO" voting s/h who don't read HC - then ESG/STO may well be in difficulty!

Of course, if the number of s/h who bother to vote drops to say 30% only, then the "NO" takes on much greater significance.

And also, if the Hedge funds etc keep soaking up the shares on-market, the number of s/h will reduce, thereby giving greater effect to those "NO" voters who remain as s/h.

All in All, there is still time, and maybe good prospects, for STO to up its stingy offer.

cheers