standoff, page-32

G'day Golddigger,

If an announcement is to be made next week, the fundamentals of such a large deal like this should have been sown up months ago.

My theory, is that they would have had an agreement in principle (handshake agreement) with their preferred strategic partner months ago, giving them the confidence that it was going to go ahead. Once they had this principle agreement, it would allow them to finalise the deal, by concentrating on the finer details like crossing their "T"s and dotting their "i"s.

Once they had an agreement in principle, they would have known it was going to require more work to get all of the papers drawn up, sort out all of the contracts, get solicitors on both sides to look over the contracts, negotiate on any minor details.

So it would have been at the time of the principle agreement that SDL would have said, ok when need x amount of time to finalise the paperwork, contracts etc and we plan on having this done by _________

Once that was done, it gave George Jones the confidence, to announce his retirement, knowing that the company was headed in the right direction. It also allowed George to set a date, knowing that he would still be there for the announcement.

Lets just have a look back over the timeline.

August 31st - George Jones due to retire
July 3rd - George Jones announces retirement
10th March - Ken Talbot $5 Million announcment

Now I believe that they were close to getting a principal agreement, when Ken committed to a further $5 million. I don't believe the agreement had been made, as there was uncertainty about there cash supplies, however there was enough evidence to suggest to Ken that the deal would go ahead, giving him the confidence to invest more cash. There could have been some handshaking going on, but it wasn't "The Handshake"

I believe that "The Handshake" agreement would have taken place somewhere between mid March through to the end of June. After Ken had committed his money, but before George Jones announced his retirement.

Anyway, that is just my take on it, and it is based purely on speculation, but you will often find that simplest explanation is often the right one and looking at logically, the above explanation appears to be the simplest and the one that makes the most sense.

With that said, there is no such thing as a "Good Thing" and the only certainties in life are death and taxes.