Sorry, Ron and Edna, I have to disagree.
What this outcome does indicate is that about half the holdings genuinely, as at Friday's critical decision point, did NOT want to sell
Let's look at a very rough break down of the shareholders as of 7pm last night:
APA - 46%
Retail Investors - 7%
Balanced Equity Management and UBS (who said they weren't selling) - 11%
Others (primarily hedge funds) - remaining 36%
What these figures really mean was that as of last night the hedge funds thought they could make more money over the next fortnight by playing the arbitrage game with their 36% vs. the additional 20% that they thought APA woudl need.
The plan by the hedge funds was for the deal to get just over 50% acceptance last night (50.001% ideally) as this would give them the greatest amount of latitude to pressure the market over the next two weeks and make a few more million.
These funds - which probably number in the dozens if not hundreds - were all calculating that the bid would reach 50% acceptance but, in short, somebody f%^ked up.
Few, if any, of these funds would be short, which means they stood to take a pretty big hit on Monday. Hence the hurried late night calls in which somebody agreed to sell another 4% provided they could get it past the takeovers panel.
In short, these players want to sell, not right now but in a fortnight, when they've sucked the last few million out of this whole tawdry affair.