The emitch move to acquire its parent, Mitchell & Partners, is a deal that appears to have been anticipated very well by the market.

Emitch shares have risen 25% in the past month, from around $1.21 on November 20 to $1.55 on Friday, when a trading halt was called. When news broke of the deal today they soared to $1.75c an intra day high, before falling back to around $1.46 after midday.

The price started rising after a bullish AGM on November 23. The shares rose a touch in the wake of the meeting to $1.25 or so, edged up to around $1.28 in the first week of December before climbing steadily from that level from about December 5.

That was a sure sign that the smart punters had priced the deal into emitch’s share price and that no rival bids were expected.

And according to the list of company announcements there hadn’t been a query from the sleepy lot at the ASX, despite that sharp price movement over that time: which, considering the exchange has been querying quite a few companies recently over sharp price rises, is a bit strange.