A longer lockup, especially by executives, is certainly a vote of confidence in the company that investors do pay attention to. |
In terms of the executives involved, they've got every incentive to do a deal, whether it makes sense or not, because if they don't do one, they give the money back. |
It's a lot easier for cable to get into the phone business than it is for phone companies to get into TV. |
It's tough for the regional and boutique players, with the pecking order of the bulge-bracket firms, to muscle your way into the big deals. |
Minority investors, which would be all American investors, just don't have any leverage to enforce management to act in the best interest of shareholders. |
The market must like the announcement. |
This is a situation where from the first day of trading it was difficult to justify the price on the basis of fundamentals. |
When an industry recovers, it's not unusual to get companies that postponed their decisions to return to the market. I think the conventional wisdom is they will go ahead with this. |