Returning a Favour
Suppose, back when Dev asked to exclude PLS from the previous sale of assets (FIS days I think), LL said, "OK, but you owe me one"). And then the Chinese come with lowball offers for both DML and FCU, and LL says, "now here's what you'll do for me" and they concoct this deal. Partly for protection from predatory lowballers, and partly because LL stands a chance to get PLS back. He knows that a bad PEA, weak summer drilling, weak hands etc may give him enough shares to pull it off. Ross, the real brains here IMO, designs a program to really bring up the value of RRR so that, combined with a favorable PEA, the merger will be voted down because it pointedly fails to take the new value of RRR into account. Institutional SHs will agree.
LL is satisfied because he's had a shot at it, DML and FCU are eventually happy because we've had this toxic-bear market summer free of unreasonably low offers and SP of both goes back to normal after October. The only losers are those who've been shaken too hard.
Pure speculation I know; I can already hear the watchers (u and v) retching. Can't see them though...