I agree with Freddie here. We have a very different story to tell than that being told by OSH and IOC. Mulacek is no fool tilting at windmills.
The Botten and Hession stories are ones of half truths like 'the acquisition will allow economies of scale with PNG LNG'. At its core their story is one of character assassination ('Mulacek is a failed CEO thirsting for lost power'). Further, and more importantly, they can't and don't even attempt to put up comparative numbers between the financial impact on IOC's balance sheet based up the proposed OSH agreement and the existing agreement with Total. They've even gone so far to as to mislead their audiences by ignoring IOC's own independent petrogeologist's official appraisal in favor of out dated and unsubstantiated resource numbers.
We don't need to answer the character assassination issue other than by observing perhaps the abusive terms of the agreement complete with a universal gag order and $60 million break clause. Of course we can go well beyond that given the secretive, deceptive actions of this CEO motivated by a huge incentive to sell the company at whatever the price.
The real story though is in the numbers, most recently and most adeptly put together by PetEngr on another thread. This is not a misunderstood deal as was Botten's claim out of the box. Rather, this is a definitively bad financial deal for IOC shareholders no matter what the appraisal. The deal gets far worse should the appraisal C2 match or exceed IOC's official number of 10.2 TCF. Further, and inexplicably, the deal gives nothing at all for IOC's three discoveries and over 3 million acres of prospect rich geology.
While certainly there appear grounds for lawsuits and formal complaints to the SEC our focus for the next four weeks should be to get the real IOC story in the news, in analysts' email boxes and in the minds and best interests of fund managers'. There will be plenty of time for lawsuits later. Now is the time to assist Mulacek in getting this story out to shareholders.