1 thing stood out to me, similarly to what you felt:
Quote: "The discussions are currently at a commercially sensitive, AND incomplete stage and therefore it would be...."
Does one take from that that the negotiations are partly agreed on? No. Thats the assumption trap that some people may fall into.
And what does the statement reveal a chance of? Nothing really...it is deliberately ambiguous, which uses words which can easily be taken as positive and negative.
After thinking about these points, i came to a conclusion similarly to yours...
A) That the negotiations have normally been on time (banks have controlled the dates for discussion after going to the company and ordering it as creditors:
B) Ahead of time (the company has gone to the banks and have been in control of that scenario) or
C) Out of the blue (sophisticated investors with inside knowledge or who have been conned by the Directors to BUY)
The only concern i have from this announcement therefore is that someone has refused someone else for these extensions to have taken so long. Why? Because this time round, the banks would have definitely been in control of the loan revision date. They set it at 30th June 2010 and it has been passed...which means the company aren't making it very simple, either by way of bad figures or bad proposals.
Now the potentially good thing about this situation is that the meeting wouldn't be dragging on unless the banks wanted to sort it out. Now that means they either want to wind it up - which takes time - or they want to come to an agreement and get on with the job.
Again, its all 50/50....but at least its underway so everyone can have a year of knowing as opposed to never knowing.
My only real whinge about the announcement is that the sensitive annonucments weren't sensitive as such. The nature of news is that it must be released as soon as practiceable and as soon as it happens. Well the company would have known that the negotiations weren't going to happen LONG before 5pm yesterday and they have deliberately prevented creditors from filing a loss this year by not winding up. So Creditors have been tied in again for another year - a strong arm tactic, where the company says "fine, you can sell, but its a trading loss for you if you do, not a collapse". The creditors should have been offered a choice by being told that negotiation had gone past 5pm and would be extended.
This info should have been released yesterday, it was not only discovered today and could have been filed with ASX before 6:30pm, which again show the Directors are being strategic with announcements and 'chess' will, for one more year, remain still the game investors are playing with such non-transparency.
Good luck however you see it.
L
MAE Price at posting:
2.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
