Good one Spec I know we disagree on the idea that DLS should be...

Good one Spec

I know we disagree on the idea that DLS should be taken over . Moreover, I am fervently against the likes of BPT taking us on if there is any such M&A activity which will most likely happen. I can see M&A happening as a necessary evil of the current environment.

In the meantime over on the BPT thread the shareholders are lamenting the company, calling for blood and making voodoo dolls of Robert Cole.

I would think BPT had, yet again!!!, the perfect opportunity to make a move in the last few days but have to say that they have not made smart decisions and are bordering on incompetency when it comes to decision making . I'm on a bit of a anti-education crusade at the moment and that's not to say I'm against education but I am against the notion that just because you passed a course at Uni and have BA BSc and other various post nominals after your name doesn't mean that you can make correct decisions or provide the necessary leadership. This is a more about the person rather than what the person knows or thinks they know.

Given the two companies potential divergent paths the question is who might takeover who and who has the better management skills. I just wonder if SVW are actually pondering this.

One last thing, just wondering if you think there might be other suitors like eg Santos. I know they are having their problems but just reading the tealeaves on there plight and the idea that they want to sell off non core assets they may look inwards towards the CB where their roots are and start running the ruler over a few companies. Not saying this is my pick, however, we must consider the possibility that it might not just be BPT who is the front runner, notwithstanding SVW holding in both companies. Check out the article from the weekend Oz, had a lot of commentary in the pages about Santos.

Just throwing that one out there.

Cheers
BW
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About $2 billion worth of oil and gas fields in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Asia could be the first on the block following the commitment by Santos to “examine all options” to revive its flagging share price.
Investment banks have been studying Santos’s businesses closely for almost two years in the expectation that it could look to offload non-core assets given the widening gap between net present value and its share price.
Yesterday’s announcement that it would conduct a “full strategic review to examine all options to restore and maximise shareholder value” has encouraged bankers that deals may finally be done, although the enthusiasm has been tempered by the realisation that the pool of interested parties is likelier to be shallower than it has been for some time.
With Santos unlikely to want to part with its interests in the Gladstone and Papua New Guinea LNG projects, bankers believe that the company’s profitable but lower profile assets in WA, the Territory and Asia are more probable to find themselves in a deal.
Earnings from the WA and Territory assets have halved over the past six months to $193 million following falling oil prices and repairs at its Mutineer-Exeter project off WA. A study of Santos earlier this month by Credit Suisse estimated the WA and Territory business has a net present value of $1.78bn using a spot oil price and current foreign exchange rates. About $400m of that relates to Darwin LNG, but Santos may be reluctant to part with its interest in the plant given its potential to help unlock the value of its discoveries in the Browse Basin.
Santos’s assets in WA include interests in a number of projects sold earlier this year by US group Apache Energy to a consortium of private equity groups for $US2.1bn ($2.9bn).
Those Apache assets were bought by Brookfield Asset Management and Macquarie Capital, with Macquarie subsequently selling down some of its interest to conglomerate Wesfarmers.
Macquarie is seen as a willing seller of at least some of its remaining interest, which could complicate any efforts by Santos and its advisers Deutsche Bank and Lazard to sell the Santos assets.
The Apache deal was also reflective of the changes taken place in the oil and gas acquisition space. With many of the global oil and gas multinationals under pressure to sell assets rather than acquire, and with the large US producers being urged to withdraw from overseas and focus on their own backyards, private equity groups have an increasingly open run at assets on the market.
Over the past 18 months, several of the biggest names in private equity have launched funds with a mandate to acquiring oil, gas and energy assets around the world. Among them are Blackstone ($US4.5bn), Warburg Pinkus ($US4bn), KKR ($US3.1bn) and Carlyle Group ($US2.5bn).
Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein earlier this month declared that now was a great time to invest in energy, with the softness in oil prices tipped to be short term.
KKR, however, is still feeling the effects of an earlier foray into energy. It is staring at the loss of $US5bn from bad investments in the US oil and gas industry.
Outside Australia, Santos owns assets in Indonesia and Vietnam that would be seen as non-core. Under Credit Suisse’s analysis, the producing assets there only have an NPV of $141m so would have little impact on Santos’s debt position. Its stake in the undeveloped Andre Ande Lumut project in Indonesia was valued at $121m.
One banker cynically suggested the move by Santos to announce its preparedness to sell assets may be an attempt to prime the share price before finally going ahead with the company’s longrumoured — but recently denied — equity raising. If that is indeed the plan, it did not get off to a good start. Santos shares fell more than 8 per cent on the news, touching a level not seen since 2003, before closing 1c lower at $5.60.