Yep, obviously the situation has been either ignored by Milan or seriously under-estimated.
One question I am asking myself is the asset vs liability of the company:
- How much WMC potentially owed to the creditors/contractors/suppliers ? my rough guess is close to $100m even after the $60m CR.
- Over the years WMC has built up a massive 5.5m Ounces resource, how much those gold in the ground is worth? if a neighbour or another ASX gold miner are interested?
- Plant that already processing/producing close to nameplate, could easily worth $20-30m to an interested buyer, if this facility can actually help with their own gold processing/production.
All in all, I believe neither major shareholders (Delphi) nor creditors/contractors/suppliers would want the operation shutdown and start to fire-sale the asset, so WMC as a miner, will still probably run at least for a while.
But chance of any tiny bits of left-over equity return for shareholders, if there is any, is very likely next to zero.
However, if the largest shareholders like Delphi, refuse the loss and would like to inject some further cash give a final try, then it will be a different story.