WIN vs MSD1) Grab your favourite beverage, a white board, and an erasable marker. Now right down three positive aspects for each company. Now figure out why WIN would buy MSD.
I don't see anything there other then to eliminate a competitor, but a gov't ministry may have something to say about that.
2) And on a quick back of the napkin calcalation, you could have invested $100k into each company on Oct 1, 2010 and ended up with the following values as of yesterday:
MSD (4,193 shares @ $23.85 close) = $137,320 at yesterdays $32.75 close (approx 27% margin)
WIN (23,474 shares @ $4.26 close) = $149,529 at yesterdays $6.37 close (approx 33% margin)
So you were further ahead to invest in WIN over the past few months, and based on the current future of MSD, you are probably better off to stay with WIN.
3) I don't see there being any announcement of settlement values if the remaining negotiations aren't wrapped up by the CC day.