The bid is dead. Long live the bid.

OK, it may be premature to write obituaries for Agrium's quest for CF Industries, the US fertilizer group.

But the $4bn offer is certainly looking poorly.

CF's directors don't like it. Its investors haven't exactly jumped at Agrium either. Holders of just 3.1% of CF stock had surrendered to the Agrium offer as of Tuesday night. (And remember, Agrium owns some CF stock itself.)

Yet it doesn't look likely they will be offered better terms.

Agrium has said that the last sweetener to its bid will truly be the last, unless it can persuade CF directors to twist its arm. And that appears an outside chance, given that the Canadian group's board can't even get into the same room as the Americans.

Back on the agenda?

But as one door closes, another one (re)opens. In this case, the door to Terra Industries, another US fertilizer group, on which CF's chief executive, Stephen Wilson, has set his sights.

CF's Terra trail has gone a little cold it has focused on fending off Agrium. But if Mr Wilson is serious about reheating his bid, he could give Terra's stock a warm glow.

At Friday's price of $27.51, Terra shares were 16.5% shy of bottom of the offer range implied by CF's stock price.

That's an attractive discount to anyone thinking Mr Wilson has any chance of nabbing Terra.

Grounds for caution

Still, investors are right to leave some margin for error. Besides the risk that Mr Wilson fails, residual hopes for Agrium's bid might be keeping CF's stock price artificially high. If CF shares fall, the value of the bid for Terra will drop with them.

But shareholders have some surety. CF has set a minimum of $30.50 a share for its offer – nearly 11% above Terra's current stock price.

And Mr Wilson would most likely need to dig deeper to stand a real chance of getting Terra on board.

A bid at $30.50 a share values Terra at about 4.5 times this year's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. The Agrium offer that Mr Wilson has dismissed as stingy values CF at a higher multiple.

Of course, may yet be that Agrium pulls its bid off – its chief executive, Michael Wilson, is a seasoned bid operator. But if Agrium does exit stage left, investors should remember that opportunity may be entering stage right.