I have read litterally hundreds of posts on 3 different boards and I am amazed at the non-existant understanding of the difference between the buying of shares and the buying of assets.

Clearly the buying of shares is a risky business. When you do this (as is one option) not only are you buying the good assets you are assuming ALL the liabilities, current and future, recorded and unrecorded. In these cases you are paying a 'net' figure. For example, paying $400M and assuming $700M in debt really means you paid $1.1B. Think about buying a building, $400K down and assuming the $700K mortgage means you have paid $1.1M

Buying assets is the much safer route to go. You just cherry pick the assests you want with the available cash, turn that cash over to the company and have them deal with the liabilities, current and future, recorded and unrecorded.

I have to admit that in this case we don't seem to be able to tell what was in the ONS subsidiary and what was in OIL and I looked at the annual report and it certainly isn't clear either as 'consolidated' statements are disclosed.

The other wrinkle here is that the buyer appears to be interest in the shares but only if the liabilites are reduced. This makes sense. Going back to the example, if you pay $400M and assume debts of only $600M you have only paid $1B.

I sure hope one of the 'analysts' following this situation can properly lay out this situation.

BB