What’s it called when you own over 18% of a near $5 billion company but you’re really rooting for the stock to fall so you can take it private again? Some form of cornering the market? It looks like that’s what Amaya CEO David Baazov is about to do with his C$2.8 billion bid for the rest of Amaya’s shares. It would reportedly be an all-cash C$21 per share offer. Amaya is currently trading at just below C$18.50. If the deal goes through, it’s a 13.6% gain, not too shabby.

At first glance, taking a private company public for $4.9 billion and then taking it private again for C$2.8 billion seems inefficient at best and a big blunder at worst, until one realizes, as Forbes reported back in 2014 (link to follow), that Baazov hardly spent any of his own money in Amaya’s acquisition of Rational Group but got all the benefit of equity gains. Now he can take those gains and use them to buy the whole company.

You’ll remember that back in June 2014, Amaya took the nuclear option when it acquired Rational Group, including Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars from Israeli-Canadian Isai Scheinbreg for $4.9 billion. (Just an aside, his name is really Yishai, as in father of King David, commonly anglicized from the Hebrew as Jessie. Isai sounds Japanese and I’m not sure why it stuck.) Now, having erased more than half of its value, Baazov wants to take it private again. That tells me he thinks shares have hit a low and he’s going all in. That is reason enough to buy, given that shares are well below his offer.

Dear Reader: Speculation Follows