For even the most battle-hardened private investor or self-possessed institutional fund manager, divesting some stock and then subsequently reading the words in a stock exchange announcement “in response to/regarding media/press speculation/share price movement”, can be chilling.

Ever since the advent of the listed company takeover, many a position has been liquidated by investors who didn’t know a circling suitor valued their shares at far greater than the market price.

Is it simply the win-some-lose-some nature of capital markets? Or are the mechanisms alerting investors to potential takeover approaches too complacent and opaque in a world that demands transparency and fairness?

Quite when a sightseeing approach by a potential suitor becomes a serious putative bid is at perennial conundrum.

-THE TIMES (UK)