It's times like these that I miss Babjak's input the most. We could certainly use some help unraveling what is going on behind the scenes.

I've been trying to game what the next moves are in this takeover.   The market is clearly showing ($0.59 trading vs $0.55 BHP offer) that it expects a competing bid next week.    I'm expecting that Wyloo will make a formal bid at $0.70-0.75 Tuesday morning and that BHP will counter offer.

The big question for me is whether a third party like Glencore will enter the bidding this week.    They have been involved in the background with NOT/ROF since soon after the discovery, have a good strategic fit with both nickel/chromite and are a global player that can financially/politically manage the scale of development in the ROF.  It wouldn't surprise me that they have a significant NOT share holding to preserve options in case they wanted to make or influence an offer.

As an aside, to me it looks like Wyloo's acquisition of RCF's holding caught Noront off guard and went hunting for a counter balance in BHP.  However  its unlikely that BHP had a position in NOT as of May given they were trying to buy a 19.9% interest in NOT from NOT (or they would have triggered the 20% ownership takeover rules).  That attempt by BHP to first acquire a 9.9%/19.9% interest in NOT probably triggered an early takeover attempt by Wyloo and now we are in play.

Going to be a very interesting August

... Been There