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extrader - great analogy. Just hope it's not the PI's who are getting screwed.

The improving trend from the last update has continued into August and September, so good news.

There’ll never be a better opportunity to take over the company, with its SP stubbornly remaining at rock bottom. I’d settle for 15p - cheap at the price!

"Strong interest" is what you show BEFORE you get down to the nitty-gritty. We've moved on from that stage, so dropping the words "strong interest" is not significant at all.

The initial strong interest has now been converted into “commercial discussions”, ie discussions about price.

There's no need to repeat the word "positive" from a previous RNS - it is obviously positive, and stylistically you’d expect them to avoid using exactly the same words as before.

They're in "commercial discussions", ie it's now just down to price, this seems to be saying.

Good news. Should in theory at least reverse yesterday's 6% drop which anticipated a no deal.

Most likely is an extension of deadline RNS tomorrow. This would effectively be only the first extension, because the consortium has only existed for just over a month.

How the market reacts to the RNS will depend on its wording. Is it hoping too much to think that it'll say that they have agreed the main terms of a deal, and that they expect it to be announced in the next few days? What a boost that would give to the SP!

My main fear is that smart alec advisers have been working on a complex smoke-and-mirrors plan which is neither one thing nor the other, but leaves shareholders out-of-pocket - and the advisers with a bumper pay day.

Agreed LTI. The future is bright, the future is Saga!

It all went back to square one when the consortium was formed only a month ago, so it’s not really dragging on, it just seems like it. On top of that, a consortium will inevitably take longer to make decisions than a single bidder.

I suppose an extension of deadline RNS is imminent. The deadline wouldn’t be extended if there weren’t a reasonable prospect of a deal. So I think extension would be good news, apart from more chewed fingernails…

"I also don't disagree that the market currently values the company at 146p per share."

Poker - I don’t think that statement is odd at all (at least in relation to stocks which don't have a pitifully low share turnover). I think the MARKET itself is odd at times, often irrational, generally not well-informed – otherwise you wouldn’t get so much share price volatility.

You mention the, perhaps, 99% of Saga holders who aren’t trading their shares because they think they’re worth more than 146p.

But what about the even larger number of POTENTIAL holders, who currently think they’re worth less than 146p, and are therefore sitting on the sidelines for the time being?

It’s the actions or inactions of the totality of these players and potential players that make the market what it is.

Existing shareholders can sit on their shares as long as they like, but if there’s no one out there who wants to buy them, their belief that their true value is greater than the current market price will prove to be misplaced.

I don't believe that is the case with Saga. I genuinely believe the shares are currently undervalued by an irrational and ill-informed market, but will be in increasing demand over the coming months as the market wakes up to their true value.

TheFarEnd - I'm sorry, if you can't see how the £140m is relevant, I can't help you.

Batfasted - what we can all agree on, I hope, is that, despite the massive imponderables, this share is massively undervalued currently, and should re-rate in the short term.

3300 - time will tell whether Sir Roger's intervention comes off. I think it will. But my point was simply, if you make an offer for a company which then raises more capital, you're obviously going to have to up your offer.

TheFarEnd- I might have said "buy your entitlement and you won't get diluted", but not buy MORE than your entitlement. And I did what I recommended: despite being overweight in Saga, I bought my entitlement (but for much less than 12p).

As regards the post-consolidation equivalent of 33p, I agree you cannot slavishly multiply old SPs by 15. However, there seems to be a glaring error in your logic: you've ignored completely the £140m raised. This will obviously boost the value of the company, arguably by much more than £140m, given the insecurities weighing on the SP which it has removed.

TheFarEnd - It isn't just people on here, the market generally failed to comprehend the capital raise, judging by the way it reacted to it.

By all means give us your calculation of the 266p, together with all your assumptions. In the meantime, I stick by my calculation.

"The calculation is very simple 33p x 15".

Actually, the 33p first needs to be adjusted down slightly for the effects of the capital raise, at which time the SP was around 16p from memory. I can't be bothered to revisit my calculations of the theoretical ex-offer price, but I suspect the 33p should be adjusted down to around 31p, giving a post-consolidation equivalent in the region of £4.65. All that really matters, though, is that whatever it is, it's over 300% more than the current SP.

Yes, FJGooner, I love the way oracles like kidsandcastles and zahirmiahoutlook add "DYOR", when they've clearly done no research of their own to back up their wild guesses, or at least none that they are prepared to share with us.

If the deadline is extended, it will be interesting to see the exact wording of the RNS. Last time it was:

"Discussions with the Consortium HAVE CONTINUED POSITIVELY and due diligence is on-going. As a consequence, and in accordance with Rule 2.6(c) of the Code, the Board of AA has requested that the Panel extend the deadline."

If we get a similarly upbeat wording this time round, this should give a boost to the SP, back into the 30s, where it was last time.

tep1 - I'm no expert on the behind-the-scenes workings of the stock market, but it seems to me that 25m is far too big a quantity of shares for the MMs to match with buyers in the usual way.

Even private deals, such as I assume this was, are normally reported to the stock exchange, in the interests of transparency.

I don't have access to dealing data around the time of the sell. But there's been no RNS apart from Gatemore's, so there couldn't have been a single corresponding 25m buy. There must have been several smaller buys - but each one of them still relatively large.

RM - from the Prospectus:

"The Saga Board also recently evaluated and rejected an unsolicited and highly conditional indicative approach for the Company from a consortium of two US financial investors at a price of 33 pence per ordinary share. This 33p offer followed several earlier indicative approaches from the consortium which commenced at a significantly lower valuation. The investors have since confirmed that they are no longer considering an offer for the Company."

"Highly conditional” must mean much more than merely "subject to outstanding due diligence".