Keep in mind that the offer has to be good enough to get the majority of stock holders to sell. The long term holders of the stock obviously believe the compan

Keep in mind that the offer has to be good enough to get the majority of stock holders to sell. The long term holders of the stock obviously believe the company will be worth more than its current trading value (otherwise they would have sold). So a buyer has to pick a value that convinces enough of these shareholders to cash out. Imagine that you owned a condo in a building and each owner got to vote on whether to sell the whole building. If a buyer wanted to buy the whole building, they are going to have to make an offer with an amount per condo higher than any of the current listings to capture a majority of the condo owners' interest that weren't previously interested in selling.