There are a lot of players in the laser space so it's possible that GE have other companies in mind if they can't get SLM at the price they want. It would be interesting to know if anyone has a feel for what other laser company would be a good fit for GE since that could be a nice investment.
Given that laser is more common leads me to believe that laser patents have either expired or are easier to get around, so the question would be how much of a technological leap it would be to modify an Arcam printer to use laser instead or how hard it would be for GE to simply start making a laser printer themselves, especially if they already own Arcam and have the benefit of their expertise.
When it comes to EBM it's clearly a different story since Arcam is the only show in town using EBM to melt powder as far as I know and I assume that the patents are a lot harder to get around, and as a bonus they have powder production as well.
I don't think GE will walk away from Arcam anytime soon, and given the size of GE, if they see value they can pay a lot more without as much as a ripple in their balance sheet. So I agree with your assessment that there are negotiations taking place right now and the extension is about buying time to negotiate.
Do you know if GE gets daily updates on amount of shares tendered so they can assess their daily position or are they in the dark like the rest of us until after the deadline and everything is tallied up?
