RE:Perhaps there already was a bidding warThe timing of today's announcement, about a month before the updated PEA results are released, indicates that WRN was tossing RIO a bone. They showed serious interest in being a dance partner, so a small premium to current prices was a starting point for them to take an initial stake. Sort of giving them the inside track to accumulate shares without having to blow out the share price via open market purchases.
I think WRN and RIO will slowly walk this along, mabye knock out a project timeline milestone or two and de-risk the project to the point where the trigger is finally pulled by RIO. This is slow and deliberate to allow RIO the inside track, while at the same time allowing for outside parties to keep RIO "honest" in terms of eventual buyout bids.
NEM has now been served notice, time to get on the ball if they have any hopes at all at being the king of the mountain in this emerging mining district. If I were NEM and wanted to take a seat at the table, I would go out and accumulate at least 5% owership via open market purchases and then approach the BoD and request some sort of similar deal that RIO received. If that were to occur, the suitors could go the JV route as partners or they could battle it out for the prize of going Han Solo. Either way, we shareholders win.