Ann: Trading Halt, page-72

Yes, but it's more nuanced than that. In my opinion the picture is more like this:

1. SYA have a capital-intensive resource (NAL), a variety of different studies going on ($$$) and a history of large raises/dilution.
2. Smart money looks at those facts ^ and realises they'll need to keep raising, so take their short positions (if I could see this coming, so can they)
3. SYA need to raise regardless, and know that they'll probably get some institutions interested in the placement because those institutions use it to close their short positions out, risk free. This is painful but necessary for a company with a very retail-heavy register that need to raise a large chunk of money (retail can only do so much heavy lifting, and many newer holders will be underwater already). That will also allow the company to put in the usual "heavily oversubscribed, well supported by new and existing institutional shareholders, etc" which gets the naiver punters excited. This is exactly what ZIP with their $1.90 raise, by the way. Retail piled in thinking it was turning a corner, and the stock just kept getting dumped (the shorters saw the writing on the wall and just re-opened new positions, having locked in their earlier profits).
4. Important to note, I don't think this means SYA are "looking after their mates" etc, the simple reality is they need the cash and will use whatever means they can to get it (consider what the alternative of not raising that money would be... the land of convertible notes etc, yuck). If that means providing short positions the opportunity to close their positions, so be it. But if SYA management are incentivised by SP performance (as most ASX management teams are) they probably won't like this much more than you guys do, but they see the books/costs etc and recognise they need the cash to keep the thing operating.

It's not nice, but it should hardly be a surprise to anybody here, even the most bullish of holders.