Apologies for the stray line there. Sorry if you took offense....

Apologies for the stray line there.
Sorry if you took offense. My mistake.
Obviously those new logos would have cost a lot more than $40m....

only kidding.
I'm really not any kind of expert on A40 - so please DYOR.

Btw: I never said they were used entirely for those purposes, but they were definitely some of the things that their management had been absorbed with, while Rome burned down around them.
It says that they had lost touch with mining operational details or were just not very aware how badly they needed to squeeze every penny.
You can see the same thing happen all the time to companies on the ASX.
Just pull the CR lever each time they get into trouble.

The CR funds from Galaxy and Jiangte I understand were meant to be ear-marked for fines circuit and cost optimisation.
It was a final life line to be used to address the glaring reality that they were still producing at a loss, despite umpteen promises about improvement.
The funds ended up being used as working capital instead.
Holders at the time were shocked that they just seemed to disappear without paying down debt or improving the operation.

I've seen all kinds of crap commentary about A40 now.
I really don't want to add to it, or be seen to be twisting the knife, but some of it is so blatantly one-eyed.
Galaxy did not owe A40 any favours. They were competition
and yet some holders are saying things like
- Why didn't A40 go straight into C&M after the Galaxy/Jiangte fund-raising?
WTF! Why would Galaxy and Jiangte fund the company's retirement?
Nobody would.
If A40's only option was C&M then they should have done it long before they went asking for funds.
Galaxy and Jiangte even did the honourable thing and paid for their shares without discount.

There was an implied obligation to use those CR funds ultra-responsibly and it certainly looks to me that when they didn't, and it was Tribeca that finally abandoned support.
Galaxy already had their blocking stake in place to avoid any quick take overs and then - ba-da-bing - buy the debt and straight to appointing receivers. Once bitten.

I always avoided investment in A40 because I didn't like the management structure with JV, merge and dual listings etc.
Too much money spent on corporate for me.
To be honest I never even thought the plant would work, and I admit I was very wrong about that, because they certainly came from nowhere very fast and commissioned in record time.
Seems tantalum plants are a decent match for re-purposing as lithium plants.
Who knew?
Well. Mt Cattlin began life as a tantalum project too.
(btw: whatever happened to our plans for tantalum production?)

Perhaps there was something always missing in those A40 circuits. I don't know why their costs were so high.
Or even how they produce such a high spodumene grade when their ore isn't all that well-specced percentage wise.
Is possible double processing the culprit? Strip ratio? Staff training? Mine management? Fines?
A bit of all of the above?
My guess is that Galaxy are very confident with their own Yield Optimisation Program and feel that executing a very similar thing at Bald Hill will address its high cost of production and inefficiencies.

Hope that clears up what I meant.
Have a good one.