Given that, recently, the founders of startup company Zeddifreddo have confirmed that they are in the late stages of discussion of an acquisition offer from another company, other potential acquirers of the company, who had suspected that Zeddifreddo's business performance was mostly hype and not a product of sound financials, have taken interest in making their own acquisition offers. They figure that, if Zeddifreddo's current potential acquirer has reached late stages of an acquisition discussion without having withdrawn its bid, that the acquirer must have had a chance to audit Zeddifreddo's financial position and has found it to be sound. Such reasoning might be hasty, however, since potential acquirers of a startup have been known to overlook that company's financial soundness and favor the acquisition on other grounds, however ill-advised such a position may be.
In the argument given, the