Biosect, if they did it this way they'd halve the number of shares they'd issue and those shares could be used at another time, hopefully at the higher prices that could be achieved after the partnership. It's other benefit is giving the partner a greater percentage of the company as the O/S doesn't go up nearly as much. In that I believe a fair number of shareholders will want to be out at the price a partner is willing to pay it would probably help maintain the higher price the partner agreed to purchase at.
As long as the company had the shares available for later use, I believe the billions they should receive from the partner should put them in solid financial shape. If the partner were looking for say a 20% interest in the company, and 10% of it was new shares $2 billion for that 10% share would seem to go along with the smallest numbers I've heard that LP would consider for the entire company.
Gary
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