I understand from AVL's side I think.Vince was maybe a bit...

I understand from AVL's side I think.
Vince was maybe a bit delusional with grand ideas and plans, and I don't entirely dislike his approach, it certainly achieved getting government favour and a tribe of streadfast holders who bought into the story. This was even me a long while ago.

But in the end the bottom line simply doesn't work and Vince probably could not see that, so merging was not on the agenda. But Graham has come in, realised that the project economics need a major shake up, realised all the promises Vince and then Graham himself started making about construction 2024 are zero chance without quickly advancing EPA approvals. And of course as they keep saying, capex funding is much more likely if they take TMT off the board.

So you put those together, TMT saves their butt on multiple fronts. And absolutely this has a deadline, especially if the plan (as has been confirmed) was to buy TMT out as cheap as possible, you have to do it now while the V price is depressing every V company, and before TMT get those major approvals over the line..

It's just a shame Ian agreed to the merge that fits a timeline perfectly for AVL while TMT is at it's lowest point. Even better would have been to push back with a much larger counter, and keep negotiations stalled until EPA at least is done.


And at this point I think the costs already sunk into getting this deal done (several million at least), no one wants to have to come back for a second go after an embarrassing no vote.

In reality I am expecting they will want to offer 13:1, but given it'll just be seen as a time waster, they'll step up to 14:1 and tell us this is them all reaching into their very own pockets and sending them broke with no christmas present for their children even, just to get this deal over the line...
They haven't shown much willingness to genotiate so far, but I hope the larger players have voiced exactly why price is needed to get it over the line, and if they want it gauranteed done in January, that's what their actual offer will be.