Whenever there is a contested take over we get very different perspectives/opinions being expressed by each of the opposing sides. I'm thinking of say, Dana, as a good example from a year or two back. In that case Dana management made the case that the offer from KNOC seriously undervalued the company's assets. KNOC expressed a much less optimistic opinion and stuck to their guns relentlessly.
In the end a few institutional investors decided to accept the KNOC offer and effectively sold the pass. (Wonderful mental image flashing up here of the Spartans holding back the armies of Xerxes and being betrayed by a few renegades.)
So the battle ends, the dead are buried/looted/ritually disembowelled according to custom. Any survivors are taken into captivity to be used/abused as slaves. The renegades are paid their 40 pieces of silver. The victorious army is feted and marched on to the next battle. And once the carrion crows and jackals have done their grisly business, peace returns.
But we never get to find out the truth of the original dispute. Whose figures ultimately turned out to be right - or at any rate closest to right?
When I worked in the oil industry we did post-completion audits of every major project to see how well or badly it had gone, to validate costs vs budget and most importantly to measure actual benefits achieved vs the anticipated benefits used to justify the project in the first place. Without that discipline, project sponsors could say what they liked about benefits to be achieved and project managers could fudge costs and timing.
I'm wondering if any of the analysts who spent so much time valuing Dana have conducted post-mortems to see who was right? I'd love to do it myself, but I don;t think the information is in the public domain, so can't really envisage such an exercise without privileged access.
Anyone know of such exercises being done with the outcome in he public domain?
T
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