Aflac Buyout Rumor?

I was reading a Fast Money recap (the traders have great insight but I have a hard time following the show since they all seem to talk at once) and I came across this little throw away line.

Najarian said someone out there believes Aflac AFL is being "shopped around" or could possibly be bought out -- this belief came to be when he noticed strong call option activity with $65 strike price.

Sure enough some trader bought 3110 of the Sept. 65 calls which are selling for $0.10 each. That is almost as many options as the total outstanding open interest for September on the call side. So I was wondering who could buy out this $26 billion market cap company.

One thing I found interesting was that Aflac gets almost 3 times the amount of revenue from Japan as it does from the US. They also make 5 times more income from their Aflac Japan arm as the Aflac US arm. In fact 1 out of every 4 Japanese families have Aflac insurance. So any buyer would get instantly get a massive share of the Japanese market right up front.

I was thinking it probably isn't a US company because many of the US supplemental carriers seem quite a bit smaller then Aflac. A US potential might be AIG but their stock is in the crapper and they have to raise funds just to keep their heads above water. Also M&A might be tougher in this climate with credit markets are so bad.

So I figure it would be a foreign company since they get that dollar weakness on their side and have been buying US companies left and right. I noticed there are a few very big insurers that would fit the bill. I think it might be AXA, ING, or Allianz since all of them are huge and have big money to throw around.

Any one of them could easily buy the company strait-up and not have to use stock or go to the credit markets to make it happen. This company would then get their foot in the door of the Japanese market and would get a well regarded US company as well. I think it could be ING because they were actually considering large acquisition opportunities according to this. They walked away from a deal (whatever it was) but that doesn't mean they are out of the big acquisition game forever.

However it might be a left-field company like Berkshire-Hathaway since they do own Geico and have been in the insurance business years. Aflac has that wide moat and best of breed advantage that Buffet likes. One of Buffets investing disciples David Carr was even checking out the stock and went to Japan 6 times to do it.

Or it could just be some trader heard from somebody that some European guys were hanging around the Aflac headquarters in Columbus Georgia. That trader decided to throw a few thousand bucks at a real longshot stock move in the hopes that something would come of it. Since the rumor is based on one trade it is hard to give it that much thought. In any case Aflac is a strong company that has been beaten up recently and can be had at a pretty nice discount.