I think Noront had a real good idea of how Mac was going to respond all right. Remember the cursory late Friday afternoon attempt to contact Freewest, then immediately poceeding to go forward with the alternative "hostile" merge attempt.

I think Noront knew quite well that Freewest had no intention of coming to an agreement as it was being proposed at 4:1. Whether Freewest is worth more or less then that ratio is subjective, but this was all that Noront was willing to offer at that time, so they simply decided to try their success with the hostile route in my opinon.