Other parties will have their own transaction advisors, likely...

Other parties will have their own transaction advisors, likely with global reach - all the way to Australia. Therefore those people can talk to our people here. If trials are successful suitors are not going to be exercise about bearing the expense of coming to us.

As others have said, the board has sufficient experience to know when a deal is good one or not. It just needs the advisors to carry the messages back and forth from the negotiating table; and to do the requisite "shouting" when appropriate. How good the deal is will depend on how many suitors there are. The co has something we expect is quite valuable but it also does not have a lot of time. But if there are multiple suitors then that could help the co in getting a satisfactory deal sooner rather than later. The competing parties will be aware that the co will need to jump soon and so cannot be toyed with for too long without endangering losing the deal to another suitor.