Member Info for BadNewInvestor

Just after midnight all the US and Asian futures were down, e.g. Dow down about 1,0000 (2.37%). FTSE100 futures weren't so bad, at about 60 (0.6%) down. When I went to bed at about 2:30 am US futures had recovered a bit and the Dow was only down about 800. When I checked the markets for the first time this morning at about 8:45 am, the FTSE100 was down about 105 (1.25%) and the FTSE100 was down about 175 (0.9%), not great but nowhere near the bloodbath which many people were expecting and London shares are performing significantly better than the levels at which some Asian markets closed and the DAX is currently down about 1.6%.

On a day like today I got an enormous surprise when I checked the top 20 risers on the FTSE250. At about 8:50 am Currys is top of the list, up nearly 11%. Moments ago it was traded at 101p, up 12.05 (13.55%) on fairly high volume, and the spread was 101.00 to 101.50.

I've been in and out of Currys a few times this year but didn't make as much profit as I could have because I got my timing wrong. My most recent purchase at 93.878 on 2 January 2025 involved fewer shares than previous purchases so I'm currently up about 5.54p per share. I bought prior to what I expected to be a positive update on Christmas and New Year trading but I didn't sell between about 18 and 21 February when I could have got about 99p per share. Also, I paid too much - I could have got in for under 90 between 9 and 14 January.

Currys had been dribbling back recently on lack of news and on lack of investor interest so this morning's announcement via the RNS that profits in the current year will be significantly higher than expected has casued the share price to catapult up. This is the full text of the announcement:

"Current year guidance

In the period since 4 January 2025, trading has been robust with continued positive like-for-like sales growth in the UK&I and the Nordics.

With less than five weeks of the financial year remaining, Group adjusted profit before tax is now expected to be around £160m (compared to previous guidance of £145-155m).

The Group expects to finish the year in a strong net cash position.

A full year trading update is scheduled for 21 May 2025.""

This is part of an Alliance News report at 9:27 am today:

"It is the second time that Currys has upgrade guidance so far in calendar 2025. The previous guidance was provided in January and was ahead of market consensus at the time of GBP140 million."

The takeover approaches about a year ago from two entities, Elliott Advisors / Elliott Investment Management and JD.com, were totally opportunistic.

I hold Marks & Spencer too. Moments ago MKS were up 10.8 at 375.9. I bought on 8 January 2025 expecting a good holiday trading announcement. That is indeed what we got the following day but the shares dived! They've been up and down a lot since then. I'm down about 1.5% on my purchase price of about 379.8 including dealing costs.

Two more rule 8.3 RNS announcements this afternoon reveal the identities of two more parties who were involved in yesterday afternoon's sixteen trades in which about 164 million shares were traded in just two and a half minutes. These two parties were involved in three of these sixteen trades. The two RNS announcements were both made under rule 8.3, as follows:

(1) An announcement at 15:30 today from NWI Thames Acquisition LP on behalf of Northwest Healthcare Properties Real Estate Investment Trust who own or control the interests which are disclosed in this announcement.

They sold 82 million shares at 46.20p yesterday. Following this sale they now own 163,298,262 shares which represent 5.024% of AGR's issued shares. THIS MEANS THAT YESTERDAY THEY SOLD JUST OVER ONE THIRD OF THE SHARES WHICH THEY HAD OWNED PRIOR TO THIS SALE. It seems to me that they have rounded their remaining holding to three decimal places because according to my calculation they are actually interested in 5.023620733% of AGR's shares.

They do not have any short positions.

(2) An announcement at 15:30 today from Threadneedle Asset Management Holdings Ltd on behalf of affiliate companies that carry on the business of fund and portfolio management. Their interests are controlled by Ameriprise Financial, Inc. which is the ultimate parent company of Threadneedle Asset Management Holdings Ltd and its affiliated companies.

This announcement disclosed that yesterday they increased a long position by 18,435,813 shares via a contract for difference at 46p per share. This announcement accounts for two of yesterday afternoon's big flourish of trades in just two and a half minutes. One of those trades involved 13,323,085 shares at 46.20p and the other one involved 5,112,728 shares also at 46.20p.

As a result of increasing the long position via contracts for difference, they are interested in 29,988,325 shares representing 0.92% of AGR's share capital. It seems to me that they have rounded their holding to two decimal places because according to my calculation they are actually interested in 0.9225448537% of AGR's shares.

Of the 29,988,325 shares in which they are interested, they actually own 429,918 shares (about 0.01% of the issued shares) and they are interested in the remaining 29,558,407 shares (about 0.91% of the issued shares) via cash-settled derivatives.

They do not have any short positions.

Their announcement says that the price of their CFD transaction(s) was 0.46 GBP per share, but in reality the price was 0.462 GBP (i.e. 46.20p) per share.

According to AGR's total voting number of voting rights RNS announcement on 31 October 2024, there are 3,250,608,887 issued shares. This means that the 164 million shares traded in two and a half minutes yesterday (see my comments yesterday, 31st March) represent more than 5.045% of AGR's isssued share capital. The actual percentage is 5.045208627%.

As a result of a rule 8.3 RNS announcement at 10:23 today I think that I know the identity of a party to the trade involving exactly 36 million shares at 15:50:12 yesterday. Rule 8.3 announcements disclose the opening position and dealings by a person with interests in 1% or more of a target company in a takeover situation. The announcement at 10:23 today was by PSquared Asset Management AG. It discloised that yesterday they opened a long position in 36 million shares via a contract for difference at 46.20p per share and, as a result of that, they are interested in 36 million shares representing 1.11% of AGR's share capital. They do not have any short positions. It seems to me that they have rounded their holding to two decimal places because according to my calculations they are actually interested in 1.107484821% of AGR's shares.

According to an earlier RNS announcement at 09:41 today under rule 8.5 (disclosure of dealings by exempt principal traders with recognised intermediary status acting in a client-serving capacity), Numis Securities who are financial advisor and corporate broker to Primary Health Properties PLC handled the following purchases and sales yesterday:

(1) Purchases involving 82,516,592 shares at prices between 46.1854 and 46.4577; and

(2) Sales involving 82,454,635 shares at prices between 46.1547 and 46.5200

so clients of Numis Securities might have been involved in some of yesterday's other big trades which, I remind everyone, were all transacted at a price fo 46.20.

In my previous comment at 16:39 today, I forgot to say that at 46.20 per share these 164 million shares were traded at a discount to the bid price because when they were traded the spread was something like 46.24 bid / 46.28 offer or 46.26 bid / 46.30 offer.

From the market open today until 3:48 pm about 6 million shares had been traded. London and South East's algorithms recongnised them as split about 50/50 between purchases and sales.

Within the just two and a half minutes, from 3:49:54 pm to 3:52:17 pm about 164 milion shares were traded, all at 46.20p, in just 16 bargains. According to the London Stock Exchange, all 16 transactions were off-market. London and South East's algorithms showed that all these bargains were sales.

The largest trade was the first one and involved 82 million shares. The other large trades involved 36 million, 13.323 million, 3 million, 5.113 million, 6.095 million and 10.477 million shares.

Due to the limit on the number of characters in a comment, the final block of text in my previous comment at 09:34 today was cut short. The full block of text is:

MATT THE BRAVE at 12:46 on 18th March: "I think they're all trades in PHP shares from any party who has some linkage to the potential transaction with Assura."

At 11:51 on 24th March PHP issued their Form 8 (which discloses the opening position of a party to an offer) via the RNS. It said that on 21 March (the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure):

1. PHP held no interests or short positions in AGR shares.

2. Persons acting in concert with PHP held shares, namely:

2.1 PHP's non-executive director Ian Krieger - 397,300 shares (0.012% of AGR's issued share capital)

2.2 Mr Krieger's wife Caron Krieger - 220,500 shares (0.006%)

2.3 DBX Advisors LLC, who are advisors to PHP - 2,776,907 shares (about 0.085%).

The link to the PHP Form 8 on London and South East is

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/AGR/form-8-opd-8211-assura-plc-0a11q7c69hzxjvy.html

I don't look at every Form 8.5 which is issued via the RNS but as far as I'm aware neither PHP nor persons in its concert party have bought any AGR shares since 21st March.

If PHP buy any AGR shares, they'd probably have to pay the prevailing market price of between about 46p and 47.5p. If I remember correctly there's a Takeover Panel rule that a takeover offer by a bidder must be at not less than the highest price which the bidder, or a person acting in concert with it, paid for any shares in the target which it bought in the previous six months. So were PHP to have bought any shares since 10th March when AGR annonced that it had agreed to open its books to KKR, PHP would have to offer at least (using my figures above) something like 46p to 47.5p per share in cash. PHP's current proposal of an all-share offer at the net value of AGR's assets is worth about 43p per share but ultimately PHP need to somehow beat AGR's cash offer of 48.56p per share. There's no way that PHP or its concert parties will buy AGR shares in the market unless they can offer at least 48.56p per share. So PHP are frozen out of buying AGR shares.

Despite what PHOENIX7 suggests in his comments on 12th March (reproduced below) PHP have NOT been buying 30 million shares. A Form 8.5 must say if the person filing it is connected to the bidder or the target so lots of these forms say that the person is connected PHP. PHOENIX7 mistakenly takes these connections to PHP as purchases by PHP.

I now reproduce relevant recent comments from PHOENIX7 and others:

PHOENIX7 at 09:30 on 12th March: "Can someone help me understand what ti means when PHP buy 30m shares as securities (in the live rns)?"

RAMJISOHAIL at 11:07 on 17th March: "Why everyone is quite. Do not need to disappoint. Looks PHP is seriously buying and want to merge or take over"

PEDROBULL at 17:20 on 17th March: "Hi ramjisohail, thanks for that I had not noticed the RNS today showing that PHP have a 1.8% holding disclosed"

PHOENIX7 at 12:32 on 18th March: "Can anyone explain what PHP are doing with all the buying and selling they are doing?"

MATT THE BRAVE at 12:46 on 18th March: "I think they're all trades in PHP shares from any party who has some linkage to the potential transaction

Interactive Investor added an article at 1:42 pm today. Its headline is "Top 10 stocks on this City firm’s buy list". I quote the relevant text:

"This team of City experts’ list of high-conviction stocks has outperformed the FTSE 250 index. Graeme Evans names the new additions and those on the way out.

A top 10 selection of Buy-rated UK mid-cap stocks has been given an overhaul following the addition of Marks & Spencer Group MKS [up] 2.82%, British Land Co BLND [down] 0.22% and Endeavour Mining EDV [up] 0.63%.

The trio join [seven other companies] in the compilation, which has been put together by analysts at Swiss bank UBS.

The list was launched last May, since when a return of 6.6% has represented outperformance of about 700 basis points versus the FTSE 250 index.

Whitbread WTB [down] 1.92%, easyJet EZJ [down] 1.40% and Moonpig Group Ordinary Shares MOON [up] 1.22% are the stocks to make way for the new entrants, with Marks & Spencer now the largest constituent with a market capitalisation of £7 billion.

On a multiple of ten times earnings, UBS regards the M&S valuation as “extremely attractive”.

It believes the market is “wrongly extrapolating the historical underperformance” and that there’s potential for a re-rating as M&S continues to demonstrate market share gains.

UBS said: “Marks & Spencer is a structural turnaround story which has been consistently gaining market share in the UK in both Food and Clothing and Home. We expect these gains to continue given Marks’ own efforts on assortment, design and supply chain management.”

The bank has a price target of 450p, which compares with 345.7p earlier today."

I am have just added a comment in similar terms to this one on the chat page for Bakkavor ("BAKK").

I hadn't followed BAKK until 14th March when I became aware of the RNS announcement of the takeover proposal from Greencore ("GNC"). Accordingly, I didn't know anything about BAKK apart from the business sector in which it operates and that key directors and/or shareholders are Icelandic. In particular, I had no idea about the identities of its major shareholders. However, a RNS which BAKK issued at 3:25 pm today provides this information; the directors control 70.52% of the shares excluding options under incentive and bonus schemes. Moreover, just three people - the directors Lydur Gudmundsson, Agust Gudmundsson and Robert Berlin - control 70.29%.

Such an enormous proportion of the shares being held by insiders means that, to all intents and purposes, it is Lydur Gudmundsson, Agust Gudmundsson and Robert Berlin who will decide whether to accept Greencore's takeover offer or an offer from a third party. Funds and institutions who hold shares will have a small influence over the outcome.

I see from Companies House records that Lydur Gudmundsson was born in July 1967, Agust Gudmundsson was born in November 1964 and Robert Berlin was born in December 1965 so their respective ages are 57, 60 and 59. Accordingly, their intentions in terms of retirement dates might influence their decision as to whether or not to recommend any better offer from GNC or any offer from a third party. Indeed, perhaps the timing of GNC's recent approach is not random but opportunistic in that they chose to make it when they did because they suspect that these three gentlemen who in effect control BAKK might have been considering retirement.

The relatively small free float explains why the number of daily trades in BAKK shares and the daily volume of BAKK shares traded is so pitifully low despite GNC's takeover offer. Indeed, even before GNC's approach it was only rarely that more than 200,000 shares were traded on a given day. The huge number of shares held by insiders probably also means that there aren't many private shareholders and that very few of them can be bothered commenting on the ADVN and the London and South East chat boards.

I am about to add a comment in similar terms to this one on the chat page for Greencore ("GNC").

I hadn't followed Bakkavor ("BAKK") until 14th March when I became aware of the RNS announcement of the takeover proposal from GNC. Accordingly, I didn't know anything about BAKK apart from the business sector in which it operates and that key directors and/or shareholders are Icelandic. In particular, I had no idea about the identities of its major shareholders.

However, a RNS which BAKK issued at 3:25 pm today provides this information; the directors control 70.52% of the shares excluding options under incentive and bonus schemes. Moreover, just three people - the directors Lydur Gudmundsson, Agust Gudmundsson and Robert Berlin - control 70.29%.

Such an enormous proportion of the shares being held by insiders means that, to all intents and purposes, it is Lydur Gudmundsson, Agust Gudmundsson and Robert Berlin who will decide whether to accept Greencore's takeover offer or an offer from a third party. Funds and institutions who hold shares will have a small influence over the outcome.

I see from Companies House records that Lydur Gudmundsson was born in July 1967, Agust Gudmundsson was born in November 1964 and Robert Berlin was born in December 1965 so their respective ages are 57, 60 and 59. Accordingly, their intentions in terms of retirement dates might influence their decision as to whether or not to recommend any better offer from GNC or any offer from a third party. Indeed, perhaps the timing of GNC's recent approach is not random but opportunistic in that they chose to make it when they did because they suspect that these three gentlemen who in effect control BAKK might have been considering retirement.

The relatively small free float explains why the number of daily trades in BAKK shares and the daily volume of BAKK shares traded is so pitifully low despite GNC's takeover offer. Indeed, even before GNC's approach it was only rarely that more than 200,000 shares were traded on a given day. The huge number of shares held by insiders probably also means that there aren't many private shareholders and that very few of them can be bothered commenting on the ADVN and the London and South East chat boards.

MOZART PRODIGY - Thanks for that. I was aware of a report on Bloomberg either yesterday (Wednesday) or on Tuesday suggesting that Greencore might be upping their bid.

With Greencore's share price falling offering more Greencore shares is likely to be pointless because it's unlikely to have the effect of increasing the claue of their offer. So if they do increase their bid, they'll have to offer more cash.

I'm amazed that nobody apart from me is making comments on either this chat page or on the one for Bakkavor. Moments ago I added a comment in similar terms to this one to the Bakkavor chat page.

Since my previous comment on 23rd March, Greencore's share price has fallen from 186.2 where it closed on Friday 21st March to 177.4 moments ago. With Greencore shares at 177.4, their offer is now worth 177.78 for each Bakkavor share which is nearly 6.14% less than 189 per share which was the value of the offer at Greencore's closing price of 190.4 on 13 March 2025 on the eve of the official announcement at 1:58 pm on 14th March of their approach to buy Bakkavor.

Moments ago Bakkavor's share price was 181.45. This suggests that the market thinks that a third party might make a better offer than the one from Greencore and/or that Greencore might increase its offer.

I'm amazed that nobody apart from me is making comments on either this chat page or on the one for Greencore. In a moment will add a comment in similar terms to this one to the Greencore chat page.

Since my previous comment on 23rd March, Greencore's share price has fallen from 186.2 where it closed on Friday 21st March to 177.4 moments ago. With Greencore shares at 177.4 their offer is now worth 177.78 for each Bakkavor share which is nearly 6.14% less than 189 per share which was the value of their offer at Greencore's closing price of 190.4 on 13 March 2025 on the eve of the official announcement at 1:58 pm on 14th March of their approach to buy Bakkavor.

Moments ago Bakkavor's share price was 181.45. This suggests that the market thinks that a third party might make a better offer than the one from Greencore and/or that Greencore might increase its offer.

BURGESB, you in particular should be happy this morning.

The excellent Next results are clearly responsible for propelling MKS share price up this morning. The FTSE100 as a whole was down about 57 points a few minutes ago, with NXT (currently up 5.45% but they have been higher) and MKS (currently up 3.06% but they have been higher) being the biggest risers on the index by a large margin. Ocado (currently up 3.96%) was the sixth highest riser a few minutes ago on the FTSE250 which is also down day for the FTSE250 (down about 77 points a few minutes ago).

Last week, on Monday 17th March. MKS closed at 320.7, giving rise to a discussion as too if and when the price will recover to 400. I quote from BURGESB's comment at 22:11 that day: "The SP will bounce back to 400 p levels before 31/03/25. Time to but if you have funds". This led FENDER5 to ask him at 22:31 if he was suggesting that MKS will recover from a 320 close that day and jump to 400 in less than 2 weeks.

At 15:17 on Tuesday 18th March when MKS were trading a little higher at about 329 BURGESB said:

"400 p is possible if it give on an average 2% increase every day. On compounding basis the price will reach 400 p. Just last week the price was 376 p and the stock price has reached 412 p in Jan".

In the 8 trading days (including today) from 17th March, MKS are up 26.3 from 320.7 to 347 moments ago. This rise isn't the compounded 2% per day which BURGESB had in mind but it is a very creditable average of about 3.3p per day.

I strongly recommend everyone to hold MKS until its full year results announcement which, if I remember correctly, is due in May.

For most of this morning MKS has been the FTSE 100 leading riser list.

Whilst Ocado is 290p, up about 40p (16%) from yesterday's close of 249.8p, this is unlikely to be the main reason for MKS's rise today becasue it seems to be due to JP Morgan's upgrade of Ocado to "overweight" from "neutral" with an increased price target of 400 from 340.

So does anybody know why MKS has been up so much today?

BillNN -

Jaxonsax's response at 18:05 today to your comment at 17:57 today is 100% correct because details of the approach from Primary Health Properties ("PHP) is old news. You should you find out from your SIPP provider why they are notifying you about this approach 15 days after it was announced to the market via a RNS.

I recommend that you keep your eye open for RNS's for companies in which you are invested or which are on your "watch list". Most RNS announcements are planned and are issued at or just after 7 am before the market opens but they can be issued at any time of day, especially if the news is price-sensitive and has been leaked to the financial press or on social media. Indeed, the first RNS announcement of KKR's approach had to be rushed out because of "recent media speculation" so Assura issued it at 5:10 pm on Friday 14th February.

There is a "Live RNS" icon at the top of the London and South East pages for every company. A number in the icon indicates how many RNS announcements there have been for a company on the current day. In my experience, RNS announcements get posted on London and South East within a minute of being posted on the London Stock Exchange website page for the relevant company.

Regarding the approaches from the KKR consortium and from PHP for ASSURA, you should read what people have said on the chat boards on ADVFN and on London and South East since 14th February 2025. This is an extract from my comment on here at 16:56 on 10th March:

"As other people have been saying here today, it's the institutional shareholders who'll ultiamately decide AGR's fate. I believe that PHP would have to stretch very hard indeed to offer terms which are more attractive to AGR's institutional shareholders than KKR's terms but they might be able to improve their proposal if they find a joint venture partner with a lot of firepower to match the firepower of KKR and its joint venture partner in their little consortium.

In my view, a bidding war between KKR and PHP plus anybody who they might team up with is much less likely than one between KKR and a new entrant who's prepared to pay more than KKR's increased offer, such as another USA-based private equity fund with lots of firepower.

If PHP has long believed in the merits of a potential combination of the two businesses, why didn't they make an approach to AGR's board months or years ago?"

TMNKY -

I see from your comments at 22:48 and 22:57 yesterday that you've got the point. To summarise in chronological order:

1. Schroders' had held about 5.47% of AGR in the period up to and including 8th August 2024.

2. On 9th August 2024 AGR issued about 245,000,000 new shares. As a consequence, Schroders' holding was diluted to about 4.89%.

3. Schroders had overlooked the issue of the new shares and/or the consequence of them being issued so they failed to declare that their holding had dropped below 5%.

4. Yesterday they belatedly notified AGR that they'd dropped below 5% on 9th August 2024.

5. Yesterday they also notified AGR that last Friday, 21st March 2025, their holding had gone back above 5% (to about 5.24%).

Assura have issued two RNS's today concerning Schroders' voting rights in the company.

According to the first RNS at 11:29 am today, Schroders notified Assura on 21st March 2025 (i.e. 3 days ago) had crossed the 5% threshhold on 9th August LAST YEAR, as at that date they held 4.886188% of the voting rights, and as at the date of their previous notification to Assura they had held 5.474109%.

According to the secoond RNS one minute later at 11:30 am today, Schroders notified Assura on 21 March 2025 that they had crossed the 5% threshhold again on 19th March this year (i.e. 5 days ago). This time they had crossed this threshhold as a result of acquiring voting rights and as at 19th March they held 5.238072% of the voting rights.

The "Additional Information" section of the first RNS explains why they were about 7 months late in notifying Assura that their holding had crossed below the 5% threshold in August 2024 and, curiously, the "Additional Information" section of the second RNS contains the same text which says:

"The disclosure was submitted after the deadline because the shares issued as part of the acquisition of the UK Private Hospital Portfolio (announced on 8th August 2024 and listed on 9th August 2024) were not factored into the Total Voting Rights calculation on 9th August 2024. Consequently, we did not recognise that Schroders had crossed the 5% reportable threshold at that time. Since then, we have remained below the 5% threshold and have not reached any other reportable thresholds until 19th March 2025."

Clearly the individuals who are paid very well to keep their eye on this sort of thing failed to do so.

A couple of minutes ago I added a comment in similar terms to this one on London and South East's chat page for Bakkavor ("BAKK").

The RNS announcement of the Greencore ("GNC") proposal to take over Bakkavor ("BAKK") for a mixture of cash and shares was issued at 1:58 pm on Friday 14th March. I became aware of it late that afternoon, after the market had closed. There was an upwards spurt in the BAKK share price on 14th March but last week it had fallen back until a very surprising last-minute rise of 9.5p in the closing auction on Friday 21st March. Meanwhile, GNC shares have traded in a very narrow range since the announcement.

Last week's low volumes of shares traded in BAKK and GNC and last week's movement in the BAKK share price (except in the case of BAKK on Friday 21st March, especially its large uncrossing trade) give the impression either that the market doesn't expect GNC to improve its proposal or that it does expect an improvement but it doesn't expect BAKK's board to accept any higher offer nor does it expect GNC to go hostile.

GNC's put-up or shut-up deadline expires in just under three weeks at 5pm on Friday 11th April.

In recent months there were lots of comments on the London and South East and the ADVFN chat boards for both TI Fluid Systems and Direct Line Insurance Group after they had received initial takeover approaches, but so far there have been just 3 comments on the BAKK chat boards (2 on ADVFN and 1 on London and South East) and 4 comments on the GNC chat boards (1 on ADVFN and 3 on London and South East). Why is there so much apathy?

Do people expect a higher offer from GNC for BAKK or a counter-bid from a third party? Or do you think that GNC will pull out?

I am about to add a comment in similar terms to this one on London and South East's chat page for Greencore ("GNC").

The RNS announcement of the GNC proposal to take over Bakkavor ("BAKK") for a mixture of cash and shares was issued at 1:58 pm on Friday 14th March. I became aware of it late that afternoon, after the market had closed. There was an upwards spurt in the BAKK share price on 14th March but last week it had fallen back until a very surprising last-minute rise of 9.5p in the closing auction on Friday 21st March. Meanwhile, GNC shares have traded in a very narrow range since the announcement.

Last week's low volumes of shares traded in BAKK and GNC and last week's movement in the BAKK share price (except on Friday 21st March in the case of BAKK, especially its large uncrossing trade) give the impression either that the market doesn't expect GNC to improve its proposal or that it does expect an improvement but it doesn't expect BAKK's board to accept any higher offer nor does it expect GNC to go hostile.

GNC's put-up or shut-up deadline expires in just under three weeks at 5pm on Friday 11th April.

In recent months there were lots of comments on the London and South East and the ADVFN chat boards for both TI Fluid Systems and Direct Line Insurance Group after they had received initial takeover approaches, but so far there have been just 3 comments on the BAKK chat boards (2 on ADVFN and 1 on London and South East) and 4 comments on the GNC chat boards (1 on ADVFN and 3 on London and South East). Why is there so much apathy?

Do people expect a higher offer from GNC or a counter-bid from a third party? Or do you think that GNC will pull out?