Ok, here is how this works. You need to understand that a "QUOTE" ON a major stock exchange assumes 100 shares. The mm is prepared to buy/sell 100 shares at the quoted prices.
So, what if you put in an order for 500, 1000, 100,000 or 10,000,000 shares?
The short answer is you dont know what the price will be, but a large order
virtually instantly drives the price up..way up sometimes.
To buy, say, 10,000,000 shares, the mm has to find sellers willing to sell, and that is likely the entire order book.
Berkie or other billionaires can decide to buy 10%, 20% or even 50 percent of a company.
Transactions of that size are usually "tender offers", often where shareholders vote to sell their shares at xx price per share.
If enough shareholders holding enough shares refuse to sell at the price of the tender offer, the deal fails.
Its entirely possible that some billionaire makes a controlling offer on FNMA, but probably not at this time until some things are settled.
Buffet, for example, often buys majority interests, he did so with the railroads a few years ago.
Its called "mergers and acquisitions" and M and A fuels sometimes wild speculations that so and so may buy x company.
IMHO, FNMA is not currently a "buyout" candidate, tho I can only guess what billionaires are thinking and the risks they are willing to take.
Whenever a single purchaser takes a large position (more than 10%) there are special rules he must follow as he becomes an "insider".
One example is that "insiders" may not sell their stock until/unless they have given other shareholders public notice.
Example: If I were a board of directors or chairman of the board with 51% of the company, and I wished to sell a half million shares to retire and buy a yacht, then I have to disclose to other shareholders Im selling for about 60 days, so that other sharehoders can sell their stocks first...
As far as I know, FNMA is not considered a "buyout candidate". One reason:
FNMA has 3 trillion in debt. This is dozens of times more than buffet, gates and several other billionaires combined. They just probably dont want to risk 20 or 30 times their entire net worth..on ANY one thing.
Even our government does "not" want (another!) 3 trillion on its debt, and the deal was structured so that did not happen.
The problem is, that the government wants to keep the profits, but, since the debt is not on the federal balance sheet the government is "not" on the hook for that debt, regardless of what corrupt politicians tell you.
