If DJs is being 'sold', maybe Lachlan will 'buy' Fairfax

I got great news in my inbox this week. I won a $1 million prize from Oxfam. Yeah, I know that sounds a little strange, since they normally spend their dough on starving people in Africa, but I’m pretty sure it’s genuine.

All I have to do is send $100,000 to this post box in Newcastle in the north of England and a guy called Eddie will transfer the money into my bank account. Best of all, he’s going to throw in 1000 shares in David Jones for free, which he says means I can shop there for life.  

Now that’s what I call a deal!

It’s almost as good as that fellow in Kazakhstan who wrote to me a couple of weeks ago to say he’s left me his oil well. All I have to do, apparently, is give him my Amex details and he’ll buy me some first-class tickets so I can pop over and have a look. He also wants me to marry his sister, Gina, who’s a bit of a sort. I sure have been getting lucky recently.

So have those chaps at David Jones, of course, except that it seems that their suitor, John Edgar (who, strangely enough, also hails from a P.O. box in Newcastle), may not be worth a couple of billion dollars after all. Funny that.

You would think they’d run a quick check on him before telling the world and making the share price rocket, maybe even do a company search or get a bank reference. But perhaps the promise of someone coming into the store again was too much for them.

OK, OK, we’re being a bit unfair. DJ’s advisers did try looking into Edgar’s Luxembourg-based bidder, EB Equity, and had their doubts about the bid’s veracity before mention of it on a blog site forced DJ’s to go public and keep investors informed. But it really does boggle the mind that they could be taken for a ride like this.

Edgar’s apparent intention (or was it Eddie’s) was to close some of DJ’s stores and sell the property, but he won’t be doing that now, because he ain’t got the cash. In fact, it turns out he took a couple of years to find $700 to pay an Australian model for a fashion shoot way back in 2005.

I can’t understand why people fall for such hoaxers. Or why they do it. Is it just for fun or did Eddie think he was buying Megan Gale? 

Mind you, I got a hot tip last night about another interesting takeover. Yup, Lachlan Murdoch’s going to buy Fairfax, so he can make the paywall at The Australian work better. I’m told he’s sorted out those blokes at the ACCC to let the bid got through. So I’m in the market buying shares this morning with my ears pinned back. Take my advice and get onto your broker. It’s a sure thing....