@Varmallama My current thinking is to do nothing. I'm quite happy to wait and see what happens. It's not as if I currently have a better idea to invest in and I do have some cash up my sleeve IRL so I don't need to sell my RUL holding at this point. If I did then I would have to consider the opportunity cost of not investing in that alternative idea as opposed to the extra odd 50c should CAT acquire RUL in a few months time.

I might consider reducing the size of my holding if it was large to de-risk any drop in share price if the deal fell through but in any event that wouldn't concern me  if that happened.

In fact if the deal fell through and the SP did retrace back to pre aquisition levels I might even consider topping up. It's something I would consider at the time afterall RUL has been agressively buying back shares themselves for some time so if its good enough for them to do it....

RPM Global is a good business that is For Sale. They have been working towards this end for sometime, it's been widely tipped that RUL would eventually be sold. If the CAT deal doesn't happen that would open the door for someone else somewhere down the track. It wouldn't be the 1st time CEO, Richard Mathews has built up a mining software business and sold it so it's a nice position for a fellow shareholder to find themselves in.

Held on SM & IRL

@Varmallama welcome to the SM community!

You'll find quite a bit has been written on this topic under the "$RUL/Results" Straw/Forum, including several calculations by me that show how I am thinking about it. (Rightly or wrongly!)

Basically, you are right, the current discount to $5.00 is a combination of 1) time value of money, given that $5.00 is still a good 4-5 months aways and 2) Risk of deal not completing and the the SP falling back to somewhere south of $4.00.

And there is a third component, that a superior offer emerges. However, I think it is fair to say that the balance of views expressed here on this platform indicate that is unlikley, because of the strategic fit with Caterpillar and their knowledge of the $RUL product set and business more generally. Additionally, $RUL essentially ran an auction with a lot of interest from which Caterpiller emerged as the top bidder. So this is a different quality of bid than your average NBIO that come out of the blue.

Anyway, each investor has to make up their own mind based on how they evaluate those factors.

Personally, I think I am going to hold out, partly because the worst case scenario is that I continue to have $RUL in my portfolio, which wouldn't be a bad outcome, albeit $5.00 is full value IMO. Other considerations are that I still have some cash to deploy, and also some tail holdings that I am considering exiting. So, I don't "Need" the $RUL funds yet.

Should I need the funds, I'd probably have another look around $4.80, but at the moment it seems on balance I'd be leaving too much on the table if I'd sold today.

Good luck with your decision. Nice problem to have!