cash position ex dividend, page-11

I don't believe there are any overseas sellers left with over 5%. Therefore, we won't see any change in substantial holding notices. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Agree with your other points though - I am just as baffled as you. Some have stated that certain funds can't take any dividend risk and therefore have no mandate to buy until the dividend is declared. That could be one explanation, but I am not convinced that is such a big factor. The laws of arbitrage say that there should be just as many funds that can take dividend risk willing to seize upon the opportunity to buy now.

My position is that I can't judge what is going to happen over the next month, so I have just done the maths based on the current share price. As I am comfortable with that and see very little downside due to the cash-backing, I see no need to hang on hoping for the price to go lower.

If the share price does spike after the dividend is declared, then the market is clearly ridiculous and I will buy up every stock that is about to declare a large dividend! Look at it as a market experiment.

I had a residual concern at one point that the large sellers had some negative inside info and were selling down accordingly, but the fact that SOL has bought up has relieved that concern. They are likely to have just as much info as anyone else.