gday jake,
I was also wondering about that as well. I would have expected that the halt would have been removed. I can only postulate that there must actually be another announcement on its way out that would reconsider the original offer from Arrow.
I think the BG bid is a clear indication that the apparent offer from Arrow was low ball. Personally I still believe the original offer was quite substantial (not reasonable) and that a significant portion of the value was in the Arrow shares.
The Pure reserve portfolio cannot be scoffed at. They probably have more reserves than Arrow when you consider at the Contigent resource as well as the significant portions of the reserve tenements they hold over significant portions of coal rich Bowen basin.
Clearly Shell has a motive to establish an LNG export business. They will want Pures and Arrows reserves to do this. The Golar deal did not go Shells way, however Arrow does not have a contract to sell gas to LNG Ltd. March this year was always going to be crunch time for Shell/Arrow/LNGLtd/Golar with LNGs FID approaching and them placing pressure on Arrow to sign the dotted line. BG aer just rightfully spicing things up.
I think that the current value is reasonably valued at somewhere around 2.5-3 billion dollars. You might think I am nuts but so be it.
Sunshine went at 800 million with a real value of 1515m after QGC were snapped up by BG. BG then offered the Lacerta (and Polaris?) tenement to AGL for around 6-800m. This implies the value of its Atria and other permits was around the 700-800 million mark. If you consider Cameron and the other 889(A) permits analogous to Sunshines Lacerta and Polaris, then the value for Pures Bowen tenements is likely to be in the billions given the size and coverage over the main coal fairways.
I guess where I am going with this is, I reckon Arrow and Shell would be nuts to let BG edge in on their deal and their is significant scope for them to increase their bid. So lets hope another ann out soon with counter-counter-offer
Strapped in and smiling : )
SF
PES
pepper residential securities trust no. 21