I think I will add my 2c to this. There was nothing vague about SAMR progress in this call. They expect audit to be concluded Q3 which is ending this week and start production next quarter. Btw, during previous SAMR renewal it took around 4 months from dossier review (May 2017) till approval (September 2017). This time dossier was done in December, so 4 months will be in April. Seems reasonable to me. I went through the transcript and seems to me they did not say directly that a2 lowered their forecast in February. What did they say is that they were working on some view of demand for a2 (they did not say this view was based on previous a2 forecast, it could be their own or if it was from a2 how old that information was) for current year. In January-February a2 gave them an update which was not as good as their view. There could be few explanations here. Based on that they changed forecast for August-December I suspect previous updated from a2 they had somewhere after FY22 presentation. So, it would be long time between updates. SAMR timing might played a role in it. a2 might had previously expected approval much earlier but in December-January they realised it's going to be rather later. So, transition period going to be in Q1&Q2FY24 rather than Q4FY23&Q1FY24 and this is time were cautious approach is needed. Another thing is a2 continue transition to in-source Fullcream and Skim milk powder and certain existing Englishlabel IMF product from Synlait. So, they might have better progress in that and as result reduced orders from Synlait. Anyway from what I see there is no any conspiracy here and a2 already provided their outlook during HY report. It looks more like Synlait trying to shift responsibility for their failures
A2M Price at posting:
$5.77 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)