Widest spread for a while16 Jul 2020 18:57
Interestingly, I noticed that with Rockrose, for a couple of weeks before the takeover announcement there was a wide spread.
This tends to suppress liquidity, and certainly puts potential day traders off.
If there are shenanigans going on, it is possible that there is a bit of under the radar stake-building, together with a loan of North shares to the stake builder to sell into any rises, without having to disclose any position.
There is also the fact that the management only has a small stake in the business, so are not going to male enough to retire on if a takeover bid materialises.
Massive bonuses and salaries by Newco might be tempting, but 75% of the shareholders would still need to approve it.
In the same way that Dana was sold short, and currently Rockrose, I can see that a bid of somewhere between £1.20 and £1.50 would be sufficient for most shareholders to capitulate.
To me, that would be selling it ludicrously short, but Shell may have an existing price advantage with NGC that we do not.
If you look at last year's contract signing between NGC and Shell, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tamCXQq6mVQ
you will see that it took years to negotiate, and Shell will not have done a deal at anything less than top dollar.
In some ways it would make a lot of sense for Shell to buy us and do so at a price that nobody else can match, although if you watch the video, it seems that all the majors have deals with NGC, so time will tell.
In the meantime, I think that news flow will slow down, if there is something afoot.