No the primary goal isn't to screw and mislead retail investors....

No the primary goal isn't to screw and mislead retail investors. The primary goal would be to try and achieve a higher take over price by affecting the voting (it appears that now they dont think this is likely). As another poster mentioned it could also possibly mean that they may be a little afraid that the original deal may fall through otherwise it wouldn't make much sense to offload at a loss (but you never know, the global market conditions are choppy and there is a lot of fear out there - lithium prices trending lower isnt helping either).