Iluka Takeover? Get Serious June 21 2005 - Australasian Investment Review – (AIR)
It’s refreshing to see at least one broker is prepared to put his zircons on the line and suggest the sudden frenzy of Iluka (ILU) takeover speculation is wishful thinking.
GSJB Were’s institutional sales trader Richard Coppleson suggests the most recent rally, bringing the stock’s surge to 33% in a little over two weeks, is "beyond belief". Upbeat zircon outlook aside, the latest flurry has been triggered by news of an investment consortium, including the names John Singleton, Kerry Packer and Crespigny’s favourite champion, Robert Champion de Crespigny, having secured a 7.25% stake in the company.
The reason for widely-expected views that this purchase must signal a takeover bid is a mystery to Coppleson. This is an investment company – it makes investments, not takeovers. Usually when a consortium buys with the view to launch a bid, it does so with stealth. Yet this little circus has been an unusually public display.
Coppleson remembers such activity going on often in the halcyon days of the eighties. Everyone would jump on board when big name investors let the market know they had bought into a particular stock.
If, by some remote chance, this really is a predicate to a takeover, then it will be a damned expensive one, suggests Coppleson. GSJB Were values Iluka at just $5.00, with the usual resource sector upside still only taking it to $6.18. With the stock having traded into the $7.90s, Coppleson sees the price falling back to at least $7.00 – and in a hurry.
*** can't wait to find out the ending of this "love story".