afr 20/4/11 pg 49 - shale gas, page-21

beanpea,

When the BOA is on a good thing, they rarely let go. And BPT, along with a few others of course, for them is a good thing to play with.

Now if you take a little care on rereading the announcement, you will find out printed in a small printing somewhere, that their reduction in share holdings, amongs other thing, was for the "lending of shares".

The lending of shares to a third party, that could very well be within one of their other company's arms, is done on 99% of the times, and only for one reason. And that is to negate/waive the outstanding shorting of shares that, after a specified time allowed by the ASX trading rules, have to be covered. Either by buying back what has been shorted on market, or organizing to borrow some from a willing lender, would do.
Of course, if one would consider it, the borrowing of shares, is more beneficial and less costly that having to go out in the market and buying them back.

After a few days, the shares will be returned back to the lender and allow the whole thing to restart again. Like the wheel of the Merry-Go-Round that is continuously going around in circle, and allowing these shorted shares to go on "ad infinitum", or until the shorting company will decide that it is time to part with some of their money.

The other 1% of the time that the lending of the shares is occurring it also applies to people that want to gain the extra voting powers to approve a resolution put forward at an AGM and an EGM. Yes, IMHO, even Companies and Directors have used these tactics to get a resolution through, which of course under the current trading rules of the Sharemarket, it is all legal.

I hope this will help, and of course DYOR.

Buddy