Ann: Change of Director's Interest Notice - Conversion of Options, page-96

Yes, Michael's analysis seems spot on.

If you look at the announcement again, you will notice two things:

1. The date of change is incorrectly listed as January 9, 2019 (not 2020, D'OH!!)
2. His holdings before the change include some 1.6M options; after the change, no options. Because the options expired Dec 31

Hence the 400,000 options he chose to exercise (not having the cash to exercise the remainder; the option-holder's curse, I've been there myself) were exercised some time before expiry on Dec 31.

Knowing very little about the company, my interpretation is that the directors were confident in the funding deal and in the market's reaction to it, and that the subsequent revelations that the deal is not backed by who they thought it was backed by, have come as a complete shock to them as well.

Which makes them incompetent, not villains? The OneTel defence...