RE:Liquidity It's a question of magnitude. You're right that the Gxs acquisition would incrementally increase the float, and l suppose the liquidity as well. The NCIB would decrease the float.
If you issue 13.2m shares to acquire another asset and buy back 1.2m, the net effect on liquidity is still positive.
wexford moving from 46.5 to 47% (or frankly even 50.1%) doesn't practically change anything about their control.
Share based M&A chums the waters. The shark was there to deal with that, and we had many millions of $ to be able to buy these shares using cash flow). The NCIB wasn't about maintaining a certain level of float.