Programmed Maintenance Services 10

10 years ago, Spotless Services offered to buy Programmed Maintenance Services at the arrow indicated here. PRG rejected the offer. If they made good time, the takeover could have been done before the credit crunch 6 months later

Orica 10

We are all clever sods with hindsight but almost 10 years ago Orican rejected a takeover offer from private equity for $32 a share

Avoiding The Big Crashes

Imagine you have a large cash lump sum and decide to start your investment strategy on January 1, 2008. You plough it all into a low cost index fund - for simplicity we will look at only the Australian stock market. 

At the end of 2008 you would have $419,000 left, reinvesting dividends. If you do absolutely nothing, today you would have about $786,000. 

But let's say you are a bit nervous about this whole credit crunch scenario in 2008 and decide to invest in an ultra safe money market fund paying a 3% yield, and on January 1 2009 you decide to plough everything into the stock market and leave it there. At the end of 2008 you would have $719,000 and today you would have $1,360,000. 

Avoiding big drawdowns in really, really important.