Crikey

Where was the ASX when Hills Industries shares spiked almost 15% late last week to make it one of the top ten ASX 200 performers for November?

Apart from a fairly dull annual meeting in the earlier in the month, nothing happened to justify the sharp spike — shares rose 14.93% to close at $6.39 on Friday.

Then this morning out came a notice from the company asking for trading to be suspended until Wednesday because it’s holding talks about a possible acquisition. “The company is in negotiations with another party regarding a potential acquisition,” it said in the statement to the ASX.

Seventeen minutes later at 10.35am, the small TV installation and networking group, BSA, asked for its shares to be suspended.

BSA describes itself as a “domestic satellite and free to air installation company, with operations in the broadcast equipment and services markets in Australia”. Hills Industries operates in the same business: is BSA the target?

And where was the ASX and its market monitoring department? Even if nothing happens and the possible deal falls through, a please explain is needed, especially to the buyers late last week.