"I wouldn't be surprised if they thought Ed had lined up the kind of backers who could outbid whatever they were willing to put into it."
I honestly don't think so... It's not like Ed had such stellar success in raising funds for the past twenty years!
He held it together on PPLs, while Dodd and Esposito had so much more experience in the higher echelons of the corporate world, and contacts in financial circles.
Which of the teams: Ed and Shannon; or Dodd and Esposito, would you have bet on to win the bidding?
(By the way, I don't know why some in this forum assume that Shannon is a wealthy man. He is far from that, and, as you pointed out recently, business is not his area of expertise.
There's no way that he could come up with a lot of cash on his own, and as I said, potential investors from the past who may respect Shannon's work, were not ready to commit any serious money.)
