for what it's worth, I can tell you that NAIF website was only updated after the announcement was made. I know this because last time I searched for "naif" and "thunderbird" which was during the week, I got a terrible fright when I saw the search result heading that said "Sheffield Resources Limited (NAIF loan not proceeding)", with a beating heart I clicked on the link and to my relief saw that it was the case study which at that point still referenced the old project structure pre the JV. I continued to check this search until yesterday and the same "NAIF loan not proceeding" kept coming up.
Also, another hint to the timing of the update is that the quote from Bruce at the bottom of the case study is straight out of the SFX release.
I also note, that Bruce notes his pleasure at the level of support shown by NAIF
and the Federal Government. This suggests that Ministerial approval has been granted. So, if we want to give the benefit of the doubt we could speculate that NAIF made the recommendation to the minister to extend the loan in March, and the Minister signed off just before the election was called and informed SFX on Wednesday.
Even if SFX new about the Boards approval, this doesn't mean the information was leaked, and strategically it may have been decided to hold off from announcing until it was completely approved. Even if some folks new that the Board had approved the loan in March, I think it's fair to say that the share price didn't shoot up higher than what the BFS announcement supported. Remember the BFS for the first time gave punters an idea of the project structure, capital costs, quantum of the earnings and NPV (the price moved from 45c - 61c on this news, over two weeks).
To be frank, if there was some informed buying prior to the NAIF announcement, I say thank goodness, otherwise we'd all be howling that the share price doesn't have a heartbeat, and we'd probably be looking down the barrel of a stock that can't absorb the stale sellers and drifts back just as it did in the past.
From my observations of closely watching the market action, things changed mid last year when for the first time in a long time some concerted buying stepped in, and kept soaking up stock at 30c - 33c, preventing it from dropping into the 20s. Maybe this was a result of Bruce selling what has been a fundamentally underpriced story for a long long time. And frankly, I think that's his job and it doesn't mean that to do that he has to provide inside information, he just needs to instil confidence in the buyers and re-iterate whats in the announcements when asked. As the Board, they are responsible for maximising shareholder returns and that means to some extent being cognizant of the share price and it's dynamics and address that (legally) if its affecting shareholder returns.
The writing (of the project's trajectory and value) has been on the wall for months, it's just that no-one has been willing to step in and buy the story, doubting that it would eventuate as stated, and when someone does decide to take a position in a stock that we hold like lovers, because we believe its undervalued, it seems we can't wait to jump in and claim insider trading, instead of maybe assuming that as each risk factor is taken off the table a committed buyer who understands the story will realise that they need to pay up if they want to continue to increase their position in a meaningful (institutional) way. Don't get me wrong, as far as I can tell the buyer played the market game while accumulating the stock over the last 7 or 8 months, they played both the bid and offer sides, forcing sellers to sell into their buying and under their selling orders, but that's the game instos play to create liquidity, that's just the market we're in.
Personally, I still feel SFX is undervalued given the information the market currently has, and I'd say that's been the case for many quarters. So, I'd rather be thankful to ongoing strategic buying that is helping us achieve our aim of having a stock price that represents current value, and starts to attract outside interest because the trend of a wallowing stock is left behind.
If I were being cynical, I'd say that your post sounds a bit like a potential response of a trader who maybe took a view that we wouldn't be seeing NAIF financing until after the election and sold some out with the hope of trading back in at lower prices and then got caught short, and now looking for someone out there to blame. Or, maybe not.
Let it be known, I still think your (
@2ic) input is the most valuable and market savvy of all of us, and if my post discouraged you from posting further I'd have done myself a disservice, but, I also think it's useful for another side to be presented.
(20min delay)