My guess is that the WAM selective buy-back announced in January...

My guess is that the WAM selective buy-back announced in January is unworkable given the widening discount to NTA (hence no EGM has been called), so they need to find another way to get Geoff off their backs.

One possibility would be an equal access buy-back (already envisioned as a fallback) but it would have to be big enough to allow WAM to exit their holding, and presumably the majority of non-WAM shareholders would like to exit close to NTA.

Other possibility could be to do a capital return (to all share holders) of the cash retained followed by a buy-back, then a new raising/rights issue. See 8EC for an example of a LIC that is undergoing a 'pivot' process.

On the flip side, I reckon the discount will reduce significantly once they've shed the CIE name and new money comes in (see sister company WQG) So there are opportunities to play CIE both short and long term.