I am fairly convinced Scott that we have the arbitragers, scared investors, and day traders, causing the slow down in advance. The previous week's WSJ article got the attention of the street and these merger talks hit out of the blue, really caught everyone who haden't anticipated, setting off all the bells and whistles of guys like and much bigger than me. Let's see what the institutions do that are coming to the end of their rapid due dilligences tomorrow and Monday.
Considering that Donaldson, Jenerette, et. al., upgraded ANTC today indicates to me that others are bearing down inches behind.
Anyone with any reservations about if the deal will go through really needs to understand that I am 90% certain that the driving force behind it is John Malone, and if you bother to read the "agreement" made with TCI when it entered and pulled TSXX's chestnuts out of the fire, you will see TCI(Malone)has them in a death grip. To even conduct merger talks, or just about anything of any consequence, according to the "Agreement," requires a "supra-majority approval of the board, 4 out of 5 voting in the affirmative."(Right out of my copy of the agreement!) Malone cotrols 2 of the 5 board seats and has probably coopted more. It dosen't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out! If Malone gets what he wants, whatever the hell that might be, nothing, but nothing, will stop this from going through. He has tremendous leverage on both the companies. 47% of TSXX's domestic business is through TCI with a significant percentage of its overseas busines piggybacked on TCI. Antc owes its pullout of a dive to business that Malone threw their way. It wouldn't do well to make father nature mad, business might dry up. Is Malone capable of that? Does a bear s--- in the woods? He can and has gotten a lot nastier than that would be. I've seen him destroy a company because he had finally had it with a runaway meglomaniacal CEO by taking some awfully big people out the door with him during a board meeting, HP, GTE, MSFT, and other biggies. He is not a man to be trifilled with. |
