I would respectfully disagree with that. I would almost...

I would respectfully disagree with that.

I would almost guarantee KS has had his advisers and guard look over PRT. SGH/SWM have tried to be clever from the get go pursuing their own media reform agenda, which originally did not include removing the 2/3 rule. I am not entirely sure why they were originally against it, but suspect that SWM was undergoing it's own transformation agenda, and has been steadily trying to improve it's balance sheet before even contemplating making a tilt, which now looks less attractive in the very short term..

The only reason why I am inclined to agree with you somewhat about it perhaps being not right away, is that PRT is now considerably more expensive (albeit still cheap) than it was at 25c. Myself and many others have been beating our own drums for a very long time about how undervalued and mis-understood this business was. SWM cannot pick it up on the cheap and would no doubt hope that they can swoop it up if were to re-trace a little.

However, should these media laws get changed, (@Wing it has provided nice political dissertations previously) then I would expect SWM would still be interested given it would bolster earnings and PRT would be still on a cheaper earnings multiple, despite both enjoying a re-rate. The announcement would easily be accretive, and a mixture of debt and equity could easily be considered.

Additionally, for the reasons long been mentioned. Rural media is a completely separate beast to metro media, and without even considering the plethora of reasons of what TEN did wrong (believe me I could write plenty), but essentially you are comparing apples with oranges