i don't think viewing this as outbidding simon is the way to approach this twist. simon wants the whole company and its bid would remove ggp as a standalone entity.
bam, on the other hand, appears only to be considering how to take out the unsecureds and leave the common intact as well as leaving ggp as a standalone company.
under simon's proposal, all future upside of ggp's portfolio would be simon's. in the bam scenario, at least as reported, if/when ggp emerges from bk and the unsecureds are out of the picture, as ggp's stock recovers the benefit will inure to the stockholders.
now that doesn't mean that simon won't put in another bid to try to get the whole company, but the way in which current shareholders will be compensated will be vastly different when comparing the simon and the reported bam proposals.
when all is said and done, think about sam zell's sale of his equity office portfolio. sam said that blackstone offered him more money that he felt that his holdings were worth. if an offer is made which is too good to pass up, then common sense would dictate that offer should be accepted. if an offer too good to be true looks like it might not be accepted by ggp's board, then individual shareholders will have to make their own decision as to whether or not to sell in the market as opposed to waiting to see how things turn out.
there will be plenty of intrigue to keep our attention for the next week or so. for my part, even though reports speculate that bam's offer will hit the news this week, i would thinks it would be in bam's, as well as ggp's interest, to wait until maybe march 2 (the day before the extension hearing) to announce so as not to give simon any time to mount a response.
simon, however, is getting the reports of bam's apparent impending bid so maybe he will just preempt bam by going out with a counter to his last offer which was rejected. also, since the rating agencies have indicated they may downgrade simon's debt if simon takes out ggp, that may impact what he does.
guess all we can do is stay tuned.
