News: AMC UPDATE 1-Australia's Amcor in talks to buy U.S. packaging company Bemis - WSJ, page-12

"They're hardly going to be unprepared for the conference call, and hardly going to be lacking in corporate confidence."

I've sat in enough of these sorts of management-speak gigs to be able to know when executives are simply making stuff up or talking in mere hollow platitudes; and when they are on top of the facts and the numbers and the rigours of the process by which those facts and numbers are derived.

It occurs to me that this scheme certainly wasn't hatched the other day over a boozy lunch; but that it has been an outworking of many months of contemplation which has included a high degree of pre-emptive integration analysis down to a quite granular level.

So, my gripe is not that they are winging it when it comes to bringing these two businesses together. Far from it; I get a clear sense that they know what they are doing.

Rather, my gripe is that they have been unable to conclude the merger on valuation metrics more favourable to Amcor shareholders.