It has topped off a sharemarket revival for the Aussie icon, which has almost quadrupled the share price since June last year.

The man with the biggest money pot is chief executive, David Bortolussi, who is currently sitting on 8.67 million performance rights that will cash in to the tune of $10 million if the bid succeeds.

To understand why he has picked up so many performance rights over the past two years, you need to get to grips with the extraordinary trajectory of PacBrand's shares.

The stock has shot up so much that even the 10,000 shares acquired by chairman Peter Bush in 2010 are back in the money.

The number of performance rights awarded to the CEO is based on Bortolussi's base salary and the company's share price.

An average stock price of 33.5¢ in June last year delivered 4.48 million performance rights when shareholders approved it at the PacBrands AGM in November.

This is subject to appropriate performance hurdles, of course.

But as is customary in the corporate world – nobody is worried about the performance hurdles if a takeover bid succeeds.

"In the event of a change of control of the company by way of takeover, scheme of arrangement or other means, the F16 performance rights will vest in full, which has been a term of Mr Bortolussi's employment since joining the company in 2009," PacBrands said in its notice of AGM last year.

So a successful bid from Hanes means Bortolussi is guaranteed a $10 million bonus – on top of his pay and any other rewards he will receive.

And CBD can reassure the markets that there is absolutely nothing sinister about the fact that PacBrands was the best-performing stock on Wednesday, the day before Hanes made its bid. Or the fact that the shares had risen 8.6 per cent in the two trading days preceding the announcement.

Expectations of a rate rise lifted all of the consumer discretionary boats right?

Got a tip? Ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au