Oil & Gas Producers post new

I've set up this thread as a "home" for any live topics relating to M&A in the Oil sector.

With virtually every stock in the sector continuing to trade well below estimated NAVs, there will be frequent bid situations emerging. Some of these will be agreed bids but, in the present climate, unsolicited bids are also highly likely.

I'm starting the ball rolling with a link to an Australian bid situation, in which the target company (called Target Energy, funnily enough) is rebutting a hostile bidder in typically strong Aussie terms: http://newsstore.theage.com.au/apps/previewDocument.ac?docID=GCA00953206TEX&f=pdf 

The link may take some time to download - it is to a 162 page document giving chapter and verse on why Target recommend rejection of a bid that they (and their professional advisers) consider values Target at around HALF its true value. The relevance of the link is that the Grant Thornton section of the document demonstrates a range of different ways of trying to value an E&P company and is therefore of some generic interest to people who own shares in future bid targets.

Target's shares recently hit a low of 2.5 cents before the bid was tabled in mid-April. They are now 5 cents. Grant Thornton (acting for Target) reckon the bid is worth around 6.35c, whereas they think Target is actually worth around 11.9c per share......in other words they reckon that Target was, at its recent lows, trading at only 21% of its true value. So........it will be interesting to see how the defence gets on. [Edit 20/7/09: Successful defence - see http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/forum/view/28067/ma?comment=121#121 ]