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I agree that it's difficult to assess without full information. However, it seems the restriction to cash only bids has limited our options. I'd like to know what other bids were received.

Ultimately, if no other counter bids come in now then seems they got the best possible and we've misjudged the market

Great work. One option might be to go throught the declared interest Rns and make contact with the smaller iis toake them aware that there is a significant group of PIs who will be voting against?

Great work. One option might be to go throught the declared interest Rns and make contact with the smaller iis toake them aware that there is a significant group of PIs who will be voting against?

The seeking alpha article makes for difficult reading. Scandalous.

Seeing the figures laid out like this I wonder why on earth other IIs would be willing to accept this offer.

Trying to stay positive, there are two ops for us a) other counter offers coming in (for which I feel there must be a good chance); and b) chance to vote down h this offer.

I for one am going to hang on to my shares so I can vote accordingly.

GLA

Will be interesting to see the Rns coming this week. Deffo worth hanging on a while to see how this plays out

I'm sure other iis won't be happy with the price.

Not happy about this offer at all. I had more money in Jan and have missed countless ops all year.

Board should've rejected this. Impact could've been a return back to 12.5 and then a hostile take over (which they could've fought I suppose). Clearly Michinoko want out but doubt they could've dumped shares that easily/quickly.

Seems like the bod have just thrown in the towel (having gotten a very nice pay off). Very big conflict of interest. Hope some of the other big iis vote against this bid.

Ultimately the proof of our value will be whether other bids come in now. The demand for this to be cash only is a challenge for many. If our assets really are worth what we think we should see a counter bid (and if shenanigans then some bigger iis should be complaining)

Tend to agree that people should vote this offer down. Given CPO5 progress and the seismic in Putamayo think I'd rather wait, change management and see where we are next year.

At the very least i'd like to explore share/cash offers.

Would be nice to see a breakdown of how they arrived at 19.21p.

I agree that seems unjustifiably low.

I'd like to know what other bids were received. Most PIs would take higher share/cash offer than this I think.

Low 20s would've been poor but begrudgingly accepted by many. This offer is derisory.

How does the bidding work for the govt released blocks. Do companies have to pay or simply commit to certain spend/dev plan?

Irish gov requesting more info on environmental matters

https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/natural-resources/consultations/Pages/Public-Consultation-on-an-application-for-consent-for-a-site-survey-by-Europa-Oil--Gas-(Inishkea)-Limited.aspx

The article doesn't indicate that bidding process is over just that some bids have been received. Could still be time to go and more to come in?

Positive that recieving bids. I would like to get an Rns indicating that first phase of bidding over and X bids received. Not sure whether that usually happens with takeover panel

Few updates from the Q3 Oxy presentation below.

Will be interesting to see whether they are in the mix or not. I had assumed they would be but with the Andarko stuff they certainly do have a lot on their plate - albeit mainly focused on the integration of the shale assets in the US and some disposals. The Colombia team will be working independently so may not be affected. Amer still small fry in terms of their broader operation. Also not clear whether any capital expenditure now would be committed in 2019 or 2020.

Production growth plan for 2020 is 2% and capital investment is reduced to $5.5bn USD (from $8bn) although most of this reduction is from the US side. The international capital forecast for 2020 is only reduced from $800m to $700m.

Capital investments will "Focus on high-return, short-cycle investments". They are looking for short-cycle low cost environments. Colombia does fit this bill very well.

Colombia specifically gets a mention in terms of whether all 2020 capital expenditure will be just in the Permian.

"what we like to do with our teams internally is let them compete for capital and they had to compete for capital by submitting projects that can beat the Permian. And actually we have -- we believe that some of those projects, both in Oman, Abu Dhabi, Colombia.."

Sources:
https://www.oxy.com/investors/Documents/Earnings/OXY3Q19ConferenceCallSlides.pdf
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2019/11/05/occidental-petroleum-corp-oxy-q3-2019-earnings-cal.aspx

I remember seeing BMO have a similar short some time back that was subsequently cleared.

Might be to catch short term movement. I'll check through previous

Wressle now almost an election play. If labour/libs/green in then might get shot down. If Tories then probably ok.

I think many PIs want a sale, me included, and we'd deffo drop if there were no appropriate bids, but the FSP has kept the SP up this year and protected us from hostile bids while we do the seismic in the South and ongc **** about on CPO5. We're actually at a really good place going forwards into 2020 so SP would come back very quickly.

Think the above is moot anyway as, for me, indications are that we'll sell (Lack of updates and progress from elsewhere, ONGC blocking and JW lining up his options).

Think someone else mentioned that perhaps this deal was done last year with Oxy. The extra year was to prove up the resources (CPO5 and seismic in the South). FSP might just be vehicle to get best price for CPO5, assuming Oxy not interested or to have a formal process so Amer/bidders can justify outcome to shareholders.

My second point here for clarity...BoD have taken action thinking they can get better bid for the whole

"lack of attractive bids" is the key phrase here. We have multiple parties engaged. Oxy have bought assets at a good price before. GTE have been in the market this year buying assets at a good price. Suggests likely we'll get reasonable bids.

Also, BOD just discounted selling off parts so current process not yielded good price. Why would others have better chance?

Finally, if BoD thought this was the case they could not recommended the offer.

"If Colombian acreage is in demand, then GTE has as much, if not more, upside potential than AMER" Comments please.

This may or may not be the case, but not really sure it is relevant - AMER is for sale whereas GTE isn't and therefore comparison is meaningless.

Comparisons using a) mcap and b) production are also not that useful in my opinion.

a)
MCap is based on share price. Share price is driven by sentiment. AMER Mcap rose 50% in the week the FSP was announced - nothing changed with regard to our assets in that time - just sentiment. SP/sentiment can be affected by many things: poor management, governance, missed objectives, concerns re debt, reducing returns etc. Many in the sector, including GTE and Parex, are doing share buy-backs and this suggests that they have excess cash and/or don't think the SP is reflective of company value (note here that Parex buyback this year is $ 200m - highlights how much cash some of the bigger companies have available - not to mention Oxy's $9bn it got back from sale of Andarko's Africa assets).

b) production. If ONGC had got another 1-2 rigs on CPO-5 in Feb/March and drilled a few wells on Mariposa/Indico and surrounds we could have conceivably gotten to well over 10k+ output and increased our resources significantly. I therefore think our current production/resources is not that reflective of value.

As others have mentioned, the main factor on pricing is what others are willing to pay - and ultimately what AMER is willing to accept. All sorts of other factors come in to play.

For me, it's more useful to look at other recent deals and use these as a guide/benchmark for what a base minimum value might be.

GTE recently paid $104m for Vetra which included Put8(50%), LLA-5(100%) and 30% increase in share of Suroriente (6m 2p). We know that Put8 was $20m which leaves $85m for the rest. Difficult to break this down exactly (and I'm not sure extent to which Vetra was a stress sale) but suggests that $8-9usd per 2P for Suroriente might have been used.

For AMER, we have the recent Oxy deal where they paid approx $120m for 50% of 5 blocks (including Put8).

My baseline would therefore be along the lines of:
120m (Oxy blocks), 20m OBA, 42m Oxy obligations, 52m cash (last 3 from interims) = $234m
21.8m 2P resources at $9 = $189m

This gives around $400m (mas o menos) as a reasonable starting point. On top of this, we have a few other Putamayo blocks and CPO5 upside. Maybe plus a little added as a sweetner for major shareholders and/or to make sure bid beats any competitors. If there's serious competition/bidding war then could obviously go a lot higher.

Suggests to me that reasonable serious offers would be in the range of $400-$550m (25-35p).

Anyway, getting close now. Recent increase in institutional buys is a nice sign that we're due to go north from here.

Good luck all. Hold tight - sure we'll get lots of doom-mongers and MM games this week and

According to gte corporate presentation from their website (dated Oct 19) they have net debt of $567m. Sure this is a factor affecting their pricing.