Silence has settled over Australia's biggest cotton ginning business weeks after Singaporean agricultural giant, Olam Group, pitched a surprise $122 million counter offer for Namoi Cotton.
European-based Louis Dreyfus Company is staying quiet about its thoughts on Olam's indicative, non-binding offer, which trumps its own bid launched last November.
The LDC move to acquire the 83pc of the Namoi shares it does not already own valued the 62-year-old NSW-Queensland company at about $109m.
Its 51 cents a share offer had been a significant increase on Namoi's previous 35c listed share price, although it is now well behind Olam's proposed 59c bid.
When the Olam news broke, Louis Dreyfus had been well down the track towards finalising its takeover plans, preparing details of the LDC offer to go to shareholders next month.
Now, however, Olam Group is hastily doing data room due diligence on Namoi's accounts to decide if it will make its own plans an officially binding bid.
Namoi has 10 gins spread from the Queensland-NSW border to Hillston in the western Riverina, plus a joint venture operation under construction in Western Australia's Ord irrigation area.
The former farmer co-operative also has grain and cottonseed storage and 275,000 tonnes of containerised grain packing capacity.
Namoi directors have previously said their support for LDC was contingent on no better deal emerging.
Waiting game
Namoi's board is now awaiting Olam's decision, which is likely before the end of April, although it may be early next month.
Olam's indicative proposal involves paying 58c for all Namoi Cotton's shares via a scheme of arrangement, plus a 1c dividend for each share.
Alternatively it would make an off-market bid of 57c a share for at least a 50.1 per cent stake in the industry pioneer if LDC or other shareholders were reluctant to sell out.
The 57c/share bid would value Olam's off-market takeover option at $118m.
The Olam Agri division already owns Namoi's key ginning rival, and Australia's second biggest ginning company, Queensland Cotton.
LDC, which also owns three gin sites in Queensland and northern NSW, is better known for its global grain trading, food processing and shipping activities.
It said it was currently "considering its position".
"We will follow the process as set out in our scheme implementation agreement," a company spokesman said.
No pressure, yet
Namoi's executive chairman, Tim Watson, said the ball was in LDC's court, but there was no immediate pressure for it to make any decision to match, or better, the Olam offer until when, or if, Olam made a definitive move.
He said no other potential players had emerged to indicate their interest at this point.
Both Olam and LDC were impressive global agricultural commodity traders and processors and "100 per cent committed to the Australian cotton industry".
"The interest being shown by these two companies can only be a good sign for Namoi and an indicator of its value to the industry in the long term," he said.
Namoi's largest shareholder, Sydney-based investment group, Samuel Terry Asset Management, has already declared its support for the Olam Agri takeover.
STAM owns more than 23pc of Namoi's shares, having crept up from a 21.6pc stake in the past 14 months.
If Namoi Cotton does accept an Olam bid instead of the LDC agreement, the cotton ginning company, or Olam, will have to pay a $1m break fee to Louis Dreyfus.
"It feels a bit like a public tennis match, with Namoi being the ball," Mr Watson said.
"We're waiting to see what shots these two competitors will play next."
In the meantime, Namoi's focused was on the 2024 ginning season, with the first modules of harvested cotton now delivered to its Goodiwindi and Wee Waa gins.
However, what had been anticipated to be an early and full throttle start to the ginning season now looked like being much quieter until later in April following big rainfall recordings in southern Queensland and northern NSW last week which left crops and pickers standing in water and mud.
Cooler conditions in southern NSW also indicated the traditional Anzac Day start to picking in the Lachlan Valley would be delayed by a few weeks.
Mr Watson said growers were more likely to be concentrating their attention on critical harvest season priorities and ginning needs than the Olam-LDC tennis match at the moment.