IFN vs Shorting vs Tilt vs Brookfield

I see a few things happening here. Consider the following:

1 - On Aug 15 a takeover offer was made for Tilt Renewables (a very close comparison in terms of company activity and size to Infigen) at 12.2 x earnings:

https://www.copyright link/business...ffer-from-infratil-mercury-nz-20180814-h13zcf

2 - On Sept 17 the Tilt Directors reject the offer saying that it's too cheap:

https://www.copyright link/business...nd-fair-price-in-takeover-bid-20180917-h15gmy

3 - On Apr 12 we find that Brookfield have taken a 9% stake in IFN, initially sparking takeover speculation but then going quiet since:

https://www.copyright link/business...t-sparks-takeover-speculation-20180412-h0yobv

4 - The level of shorting in IFN has increased significantly recently to 25.2 million shares (of 954 million issued):



Note that the share price weakness of late is subject to historically small volumes of trading.

Now, by my calculations IFN is trading at about 6 x expected P/E for FY19 (taking into account the one-off refiancing costs are behind us and new earnings from Bodangora and the bulk of FY19s revenue is through contracted prices for energy and LGCs). This is half of what is being offered for Tilt.

I find it too conicidental that shorts on IFN have increased at the same time as TLT has come into play for a takeover attempt. If Brookfield (or anybody else) wanted to make a play for IFN, then with a small volume of shorts they can push the share price down, making a takeover for the lot cheaper. The small cost of burning these shorts translates to a major saving for a total takeover.

There is simply too large a divergence between the value of IFN versus TLT right now to not think that something fishy is happening here, especially given the sudden and large increase in shorting activity on IFN.  

Finally, with 25.2 million shorts that will eventually have to buy back on market at some point I see an imminent short burn happening at some point. The catalyst for this will be, at latest, a Labor election victory in May 2019 (if not sooner). At the time of writing this there are a total of 81 sellers of only 1.23 million shares. Buying back 25.2 million shares on market won't be easy. During the last three months of trading, daily volume of IFN has averaged less than 1 million per day.

So given what is happening with Tilt I am saying that I believe that IFN is being considered for a takeover and that the level of shorting has something to do with this. It's clearly undervalued based on its earnings and compared to Tilt and I'm sure that Brookfield see that just as clearly as I do.