I am repeating a bit of what everyone has said but firstly it...

I am repeating a bit of what everyone has said but firstly it seems quite clear to me from IVA's statement that it proposed a transaction that involved Xstrata purchasing the CCP assets and itself purchasing some of the exploration tenements (consistent with what IVA have always said about obtaining more exploration land in the Cloncurry to add to their portfolio).

"Ivanhoe had previously proposed to both EXS and Xstrata Copper management an alternative transaction, under which Ivanhoe would have acquired a direct interest in parts of Exco's exploration portfolio".

This is great news in my opinion. We know that IVA actually want to acquire more of Exco's assets, but were knocked back either because the price was too low or the deal was too complicated for EXS and/or Xstrata. It makes sense therefore that they would want to see EXS distribute all the after-tax cash and be left as more of a shell that they can either acquire or cherry-pick. At 70c, basically no value is being given to these exploration assets by the market, so any offer from IVA is all upside for the SP from here.

This is exactly the position I was hoping for, i.e. an initial proposal made that then forces the others into play. Looking forward to hearing what Sin Tang have to say as their initial interest was with CCP itself. Will they come over the top I wonder?