What do they achieve by delay if they really intend to raise...

What do they achieve by delay if they really intend to raise capital? If the market is counting on a cap-raising, then the price is unlikely to settle... It is a bit of a catch22, since the lower it goes, the less the existing shares are worth under dilution.

The $33m provision for bad debts is a shocker - guessed this must be a factor in the problems and possibly at least partly responsible for the write-down in goodwill, so perhaps the main factor.

Either the standstill is a last-ditch attempt by the lenders to salvage their funds (since they're half secured against intangibles), or HST are seriously thinking they can extend the standstill until they are trading on better metrics - though that is hardly going to prop up the equity ratio in any reasonable time frame without asset sales.

Would now fail my risk hurdles, so would not hold this for now, but will watch with interest.