Ann: Ceasing to be a substantial holder , page-6

Hi All

My current feeling is that the SP will only come good once there is an announcement regarding Smokey Hills. Details on Rooderand will assist, but is not the focus of the market.

The exit by BOA house A/C (Merrill Futures) is a positive.

If you look at the breakdown of the holdings on the announcement and compare to the last announcement then you should get the picture. By my calculation BOA house still held ~6.5m shares on the 21 March, while Sabre continued to hold ~18.5m shares on the 21 March. At a guess I would suspect that BOA house sold their last ~6.5m shares on 22 March (as part of Thursday's volume and SP decrease).

Sabre's shareholding (the borrowing and returning back and forth as part of the Prime Brokerage agreement with BOA) looks to be quite stable. They increased their holding on 21 Feb and then lightened at bit on 21 Mar. I think Sabre remains a holder and will continue to remain a holder in the near term (along with Northcape and Acorn).

The big boys will attempt to manage their exposure to 'risk' and so with out any news from the company they will have probably trimmed their holdings as the SP has sunk to the current lows.

The buying and selling by BOA does not seem to correspond at all with the ASIC short selling reports. Note also that more than half the shorts were covered on 16 March (when the S&P rebalance occurred and PLA was dropped as part of the ASX 300 index).

Alternative SP support could arrive if a new 'substantial' shareholder comes clean with a strategic interest in PLA, this would also breath life into the SP. However, this is only a speculative thought and not based on anything out of these market announcements.

Does anyone have any alternative views?

Cheers

Gus