Rather than purely Bishop, I'd be inclined to point the finger also at Lufty's advisers just before they signed the contract (the 'put option') that allowed Bishop to force Lufty to buy bmi.
Agreeing to buy a company far into the future for a price that bears little or no relevance to the strength of the company when it changes hands and when there are no guarantees that the company will be well managed between now and then only encourages the main shareholder(s) to do as much asset stripping in advance as possible