I talked with Elmer about this and he said he would take any reasonable offer to the shareholders. Mike has recently said they would announce any firm offer.
I think the point is when you are negotiating you don't run out the door and announce everything that comes across the table.
Elmer said that they would convene a meeting between the Teck representative and Copper Fox. At the meeting Teck would give them an offer. If it was clearly unnaceptable, like under the current share price for example--my words, then it could be rejected out of hand. At a certain figure though they would be given maybe 10 days to respond and be able to get a fair market opinion.
Clearly corporations go through some sort of private negotiation process before having to make a potential deal public. All the time offers get announced that had to have some extensive discussions beforehand.
Then we vote and if it were for a buyout, I believe we would need to vote before those 120 days were up if Teck were trying to avoid that deadline. It does look like Teck would have to move fast if they want time to negotiate.
