International Paper made a surprise cash-and-stock bid of $64 a share two weeks ago.
The surprise bid is the latest turn in a tumultuous two months for Grace.
After Union Pacific made a surprise bid in October, some analysts did not give it much hope.
And a surprise bid upset the planned merger of two big financial exchanges.
After a surprise bid in 1996 to pick up the rights to the Pistons, Fox began planning to launch its network two years later.
The former company made a surprise $5 billion bid for the latter this week.
The surprise bid put recycling back on the table in New York, environmentalists and waste-industry experts said.
That is three times the $500 million offered by the Bloomberg administration in a surprise bid in July.
Their surprise bid of $:13.06 a share, or $21.94, values the British concern at $4.9 billion.
American is expected to reject the surprise bid, which amounts to $20 a share.
