I tend to agree with TonyBarber, a voluntary administrator would...

I tend to agree with TonyBarber, a voluntary administrator would likely receive multiple bids in excess of the creditors' claims by people who (quite rightly) believe they could operate and develop the assets better than FML has. It's unlikely an administrator would recommend a clearly inferior sale to SD above a quick and clean asset sale to a 3rd party where both options offered the same 100% payout to creditors. This is because:

• a sale to SD would be delayed and uncertain because of the necessity of obtaining FIRB approval,
• the potential for litigation given the conflicts of interest arising from SD being FML's controlling shareholder and primary creditor and participating in FML's insolvency through their control/management of FML, and
• all of the soft/political issues associated with SD being a Chinese SOE.

Even a co-operative administrator would think twice about going there under the spotlight of administering an ASX listed company. If they did, the report to creditors would make for very interesting reading with regulators and politicians getting involved pretty quickly. Not saying it couldn't happen but I wouldn't want to be their insurer.