Pear I remember a similar sort of situation for AWE. Do read...

Pear

I remember a similar sort of situation for AWE. Do read their 16Dec 2013 ASX release when they rejected an implied offer of $1.44/sh from Senex. Their ASX update gave a good enough explanation.

Last year on 5th May 2016, AWE again rejected an offer for 80c from Lone Star Fund. And there was some more fanfare in August this year.

Santos should have updated the mkt back in August 2017, not 3 months later when AFr spilled the beans.
Their SP would have spiked up & back down in the event of a 'no sale'. Atleast things would have being transparent for the average Investor besides the 'Business as usual' tag. STO's debt situation in parallel with a drop in oil price, is a key reason for the SP to pull back from the highs of $13+ in mid 2014 to sub $3. Since then, its being a CorpFin textbook trifecta, ie sale of assets, issue of shares, cost cutbacks etc to balance things out.

Will b interesting to see if there's a new bid from Harbour.

Remember 2 years ago Harbour were looking at buying KAR's JV partner Pacific Rubiales in May 2015 for C$6.50/sh, which was knocked back.  Same story there, USD5.4bil debt etc etc. Where's PRE now ?

And earlier this year in January, Harbour picked up Shell's North Sea asset for USD3bil for 2P-350 mmboe. Having Linda Cook on Board worked well in that instance !!

Harbour are basically a venture between Noble Group & EIG, so wouldn't surprise me if they que up to buy some of BG's assets that Shell should look at flogging post-merger.