Don't think I would go so far as to call it greed. They probably saw some of the crappy Zs bringing really big numbers on BAT, and figured they would easily outperform those numbers. Just didn't take into account how many uninformed bidders with $$ seem to be on BAT these days.
Rolling the dice doesn't necessarily equate to greed.
Personally, I feel bad for Mark. Sucks that he was put into this position. Life is uncertain.