The founder and CEO of William Lyon Homes has again tried to take the company private, reports the Los Angeles Times. William Lyon is offering $93 a share to buy 51 percent of the company.

The stock skyrocketed on the news Friday and analysts say the final offer, if it is to succeed, will be closer to $99. A previous offer of $82 a share, then a premium to the price, was rejected last year by independent directors. That’s what independent directors are supposed to do.

William Lyon is a top-2o builder that sold 3,196 homes in California, Arizona and Nevada. Its homes, as the industry say, sell from the 200,000s. In Las Vegas Lyon is selling nine subdivisions from Summerlin to the northeast part of the valley. It also bought the bankrupt Mountain Falls in Pahrump in 2004. The Business Press reported that plans for the golf course community include 3,200 homes.

Somewhere in all this there must be Lyon’s ego. The stock is being run up at a time when the three markets the company serves are all cooling and upward pressure on interest rates will only speed that trend.