may have hit the bottom, page-39

the announcement is at the mercy of the Perth ASX office at the moment. they're busy trying to process a bunch of delayed IPOs. One of them I'm sure is KAL's :)

For those who have missed last weeks news, here it is.

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ASX caught short by Perth's float workload
April 21, 2006

STAFF shortages at the Australian Stock Exchange in Perth are delaying approvals for new floats, locking up millions of dollars of investors' funds, market players claim.

Several middle management staff are understood to have left recently, drastically cutting the size of the small Perth office and creating a backlog of companies awaiting final ASX approval to have their shares listed.

Stockbrokers and corporate finance sources said some companies that had completed initial public offerings (IPOs) and met all other listing requirements were being forced to wait up to two weeks to list.

During that time they were not permitted to access the millions of dollars raised from investors.

The Perth office of the exchange, headed by companies manager Brendan O'Hara and his assistant, Tony Walsh, is gagged from speaking to the media and refers all calls to its Sydney headquarters.

ASX spokesman Stephen Mills said the exchange did not comment on staff matters but denied it had fielded any complaints about delays.

"It is a busy time, there are lots of IPOs and obviously the WA economy is travelling nicely," he said. "I don't think we are down on staff numbers, but I'm more than happy to say we are confident our people there are dealing appropriately with the issues during what is obviously a busy time."

But one stockbroker said one new float had sat idle for two weeks waiting for listing approval, with the ASX blaming the huge workload. "There is no question they are struggling," he said.

"There is just a huge bottleneck at the moment because of the velocity of transactions - and it's not just processing floats, it is placements and company announcements, given that the number of WA listed companies has basically doubled in just a few years."

The problem has emerged less than a month after a contingent of ASX directors and executives, including chief executive Tony D'Aloisio, told a business dinner in Perth how critical the booming WA market was for the exchange.

"Here we were being told how important Perth was but the ASX here has never been so under-resourced," one corporate financier said. "[The ASX] is happy to be making all this money but I think they have to realise the need to reinvest."

WA's top 100 companies have a combined market value of almost $100 billion and 60 new companies were floated in the state last year, generating hefty fees for the ASX.

The West Australian