Ann: First Half Trading Update, page-5

I should have listened to you @thecapitalist when you offered a similar opinion a while ago.  I started to feel a little uneasy about the vulnerability you are referring to a month or so ago.  After a bit of a review I had my shares for sale at 66c.  They were sitting there when the profit downgrade came through and I have ended up selling all my shares for 54c.

I have been very surprised that the sp has held up as well as it has over the last couple of days.  I was surprised to get out at anything above 50c given profit will almost halve this half.  If this doesn't show the company's vulnerability then nothing will.  Maybe the second half will be better?  Maybe it won't.  If the competitor has the money and is determined then pental may well face a second half the same as the first half.  Could this be a permanent drop in profitability?  It certainly could be an ongoing problem.

I think management have done pretty well here at pental but I was disappointed no updated numbers were given for the commercial market growth or the chinese growth.  It makes me think those figures are not all that compelling.

My guess is that a competitor will want to buy pental's brands and will takeover the company to do so.  It makes sense to me that they would wait for the decline to further weaken pental and it's sp before launching any such bid.  They may end up paying 30c a share instead of 70c.

However  perhaps the reason for the sp resilience today and yesterday in the face of a disastrous announcement could be that someone knows something we don't know.