I don't normally bother to respond to these posts because the gaps in your understanding are simply too great to overcome, but I will reluctantly in this case. The reason is pretty clear. Irrespective of whether FMG would or would not make an offer, any company trying a takeover has to deal with the 17% short level which would have to be closed out, driving the SP up easily 50% or more, depending on the size of the initial offer, then they have to deal with the options trigger price of 270 held by management/BOD who are unlikely to recommend the bid for less, and who have a control of a 350m war chest to launch a defense. Then, unless the BOD is onside they have to address the obvious defense by the BOD which is a share buy back., then they have to convince enough of the instos whose average buy in, I believe, was calculated to be 250+ by someone some time ago, and lastly we don't know what poison pills have been built into the supply contracts.
So the answer is pretty obvious. A takeover can't be done for less than 270, and that is where the premium starts. More likely somewhere north of 300. So if that is a barrier to the decision, so be it, but it is never the less the reason why anybody contemplating a takeover has to pay a high premium to take GXY - unless it wants to be taken over. A $40m buyback (in a takeover defense) would potentially take GXY off the table in the matter of a few weeks. Which is also why you shorters have to talk down any suggestion of a takeover quickly, as it would be instant karma. Even a 30%-50% premium at the current price, while too low to guarantee success would be instant obliteration for shorts.
While I don't think GXY is the best target for a takeover - there are others that have significantly more going concern problems cheifly because of their debt levels, The lower we go, the more likely even a half backed offer becomes. And where one TO appears, others will follow. GXY is already at the level where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, particularly to any company with more than a 6 month horizon - which means pretty much everyone. You could buy it and strip it and make a tidy profit. One doesn't even have to plan to operate it - except for the built in defenses I have already noted. So your operational arguments become irrelevant - even the MtC plant is worth more than you attribute to the mine as a going concern. You could pack it up and move it to another mine, if you really wanted to, and sell off the other resources, or more likely the local business entities holding the resources and the Gov licenses which carry a multi year investment, and therefore to a developer are worth a significant (time & therefore money) investment.
The longer GXY sits on a mountain of cash with resources pending development and a ludicrously low SP, however, the greater the risk of an attack just for to strip the cash and unencumbered resources. If I was running the firm this would be my greatest worry, and I would be moving heaven and earth to get the SP up and the development particularly on SDV running at full tilt with locked in build contracts, and I'd be maximising the margins on MtC. The BOD's apparent relaxed attitude to this situation is the most confusing part of GXY's behaviour. I can see so many ways they could be changing the current situation that I can not begin to explain why they haven't. Either they haven't a clue (unlikely given the actual clever decisions they have made over the years) or they must be absolutely certain that more than 50% of their share holders are not going to budge in the near term, or more likely 60-65%, but even 20% would give an aggressive investor an opportunity to spread chaos. I therefore conclude that they have something up their sleeves that they know/believe is a game-changer which will appear soon or can be made to do so, or perhaps it is simply that they recognise that a small scale buyback, which can be launched at any time, will fix the situation very quickly, and don't need to use it until they need to use it.
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