On the principle that if you go in low, later increments look more impressive, TPG has now weighed in with A$2.7 billion for the whole of Australia's Fairfax Media.
Someone should tell them they're dreaming, but clearly they're not.
US private equity fund TPG and its associates this morning threw a cool half-billion into the offer they made for Domain, metro dailies The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Australian Financial Review and the events and digital ventures business, but want the remaining assets now as well.
The increase to A$1.20 a share may sound a lot, but it's an exploitative move taking advantage of a situation largely wrought by the likes of Google and Facebook, which have siphoned off the cash which was central to the publisher's business model. While this duopoly isn't going to go away, there is hope that they may yet be forced to play by the rules.
If TPG and its associates get their way, there will likely still be the issue of what to do with the bits they don't want. Hopefully that may keep the metro and regional mastheads together.
Columnist in News Corp's The Australian Mark Day put it - perhaps unintentionally - in perspective on Monday by speculating about what Hywood might do with the less desirable of the Fairfax assets, primarily its share in Stan, radio, and regional and NZ newspaper interests. Throwing in for good measure that the post-merger combination of Fairfax and Rural Press had then been capitalised at A$9 billion...
News "might be attracted to adding the talk-radio arm to its business," he wonders, and could "technically" add the regional papers to "its already huge stable" were it not for concerns about competition.
Very droll, but a ghastly thought, and one upon which we aired views when the former APN Australian regionals were being conveniently passed to the Murdoch empire.
In the same column, Day congratulates the cross-bench Australian senators who have set up a parliamentary inquiry into publishing issues including the Google-Facebook duopoly and its impact on traditional journalism.
"Make no mistake, Google and Facebook are the journalists' enemy," he says, not before time.
Is that why there's a rush to flog off Fairfax's best bits, for fear that they might be worth even less soon? Or is Hywood ready to give up the fight, cash up his options and ride off in his Maserati?
Seems to us that selling Domain off early for a bargain basement price instead of following through with options to float it on the stock exchange is questionable logic. But it would be good if the publishing assets were kept together; forget how Rupert Murdoch might come to the rescue: The key Australian publishing assets he doesn't already own are those currently in Fairfax Media... and West Australian Newspapers, the country's only other "big" publisher.
So come on Kerry (Stokes), where's Seven West when we need them?
Peter Coleman