Great response
@SmugLex as I respect your view on this matter entirely. I am not impressed about the selling and the timing of these performance rights shares by our new CEO. However without being privy to the initial negations by the board and not having any insight to her personal or outstanding commitments, I cannot make a conclusive decision on whether this reflects a person who is driven by self interests or a genuine need to use this money for a previous financial or tax commitment.
At this stage I am prepared to give her the benefit of doubt as I can't fathom why someone so new in the role would risk blowing up a company or committing career suicide by potentially opening the doors to litigation against her, should something negative come out of the wood work in the near future.
I personally feel that the blame should be more proportionately laid against the BOD about the deal agreed too (as previously mentioned by others) to stagger and escrow these performance rights shares to prevent this shock and awe event happening in the first place.
I agree with H00Ts that using a sign on bonus from A2 huge cash reserves might have been the better option but again, not knowing enough about the tax implications doing this versus the issuing of performance rights shares it is difficult to make a reasonable comment on.
I hope that you and other SHs at the upcoming AGM can ask some difficult questions to clarify this situation a bit more, just to try and stop a similar repeat event happening again in the future. This would help a lot of LT SHs rebuild their strength and trust back into the management of A2 that has had impeccable track record up to this stage.
As I mentioned before emotions have understandably been running high by a lot of LT SH's that can cloud people's judgments on whether to hold or sell.
That's what I was trying to highlight to help stop people potentially slamming their fist down on the sell button before they have had time to digest this news and analyse it more thoroughly in a calmer state of mind.
Again it does not help when there is so much noise coming from the self interested groups that have been down-ramping , as they just like to keep the fire of uncertainty burning brighter for longer.
Finally, I am happy to hear that you have been successful investing for yourself as good to have a critical mind of professionals too, as unfortunately it is ruthless world in the finance world driven by greed and self interest groups, hence I had a gutful and sold out of my practice a while ago.
I now use my previous training and experience to guide me when I invest for myself which I have been more successful in buying direct shares and companies rather than any managed funds that I have used in the past.
However, I do realise that it is a lot more riskier due to myself having a more concentrated portfolio.
So good luck to all and hope that we can all look forward to a lot more positive news and updates in the upcoming AGM with this company, as I still believe the best is yet to come with the strong fundamentals of this company.
(20min delay)