For this particular company it seems to me there would little...

For this particular company it seems to me there would little point in stock manipulation leading up to a takeover offer.

The only reason you would do it is if you wanted shareholders to think they were getting a great deal compared to the VWAP.

That works fine if your shareholders are largely retail Mums and Dads. They would be fooled and would accept an offer that was 30% above VWAP.

But that is not the case for EXT. Over 90% is in the hands of other mining companies. Rio Tinto, Kalahari, Polo, these are professional mining companies who would value their holdings based on pounds in the ground and the concentrations thereof.

They would not care what the VWAP is on such a lightly traded stock and certainly would not accept an offer that didn't match their professional real-world valuations.

So if someone was thinking to manipulate down to make an offer look more sweet I think they will be sorely disappointed in the take-up rate of the offer. I think they would find something like 5% of shares would be available to them but the big boys will not be interested.