be interesting to see who picked up the vastly increased volume...

be interesting to see who picked up the vastly increased volume of trades that the "bid" caused. Cos lets think hypothetically for a moment . . if a bidder comes with no shareholding and offers $14.50 for 100% of company that costs (say for the 1.193 billion shares on issue) around $17.3 billion.

Now if you were knowing, or suspecting that the bid would "have" to be rejected by the Coles Board (principally to save face) in order to get a higher headline number, then perhaps you'd also be astute enough to buy on-market as well through your many syndicate members (in order to save putting in Substantial Shareholder Notices) at the recent prices. So lets say that half of all shares traded (around ten percent of the stock on issue) were picked up by friendlys . . and assume that the total bid pool doesn't change (unlikely but stay with me) . . then you could afford to pay $14.75. So with a slightly increased cash pool a bid can come back at a better headline number and the weighted average of the stock bought remain pretty much the same . . . who says strategy isn;t fun!