Hostile bids take a lot of nerve. But that is not all they require. Mirant’s withdrawal of its $8bn tilt at power producer NRG Energy underscores this in spades. If a management is going to go into battle, it had better have the following lined up: supportive shareholders, a strong acquisition currency and a vulnerable target. But some of Mirant’s own shareholders balked – an understatement in the case of Pirate Capital, which described the proposed deal as a “blatant destruction of stockholder value” and threatened a proxy fight if Mirant did not climb down.

As for the stock, it is up over 10 per cent since December, but one can understand NRG investor queasiness in taking Mirant paper, given how recently Mirant emerged from bankruptcy. A longer track record would have been nice, and a far bigger cash component to the offer might have eased some nerves. Lastly, NRG was hardly limping along as the obvious target for an opportunistic bid. Its share price was already up 120 per cent over the past couple of years.