You have to ask why the funding proposal was structured the way...

You have to ask why the funding proposal was structured the way it was... so many conditions it was almost guaranteed to not proceed. As it happened, it fell over at the first hurdle.

Why was it dependent on CMQ being able to get permission from the court to vary their undertakings (as opposed to commencing after the appeal decision when CMQ would be free of such undertakings), and why was it not going to be offered if the appeal decision came through before May 31 (significantly, it was immaterial which way the appeal would be decided, and a decision before that date is a virtual certainty)?

To my mind, a genuine funding proposal would have:
* offered $60mil finance upon the appeal decision going against CMQ. The limiting factor here for the funders was having enough time to do the due dilligence and get shareholder approval for the issuing of their 75% of the company.
* If CMQ won the appeal, a smaller amount of finance to cover the time from when they run out of cash at the end of the year until the bonds mature in March 08, followed by $60mil to repay the bondholders at maturity. The limiting factor here is that the bondholders *might* chose to convert their shares, in which case the funders won't have the opportunity to grab the share of the company that they want, meaning that they would be unwilling to put in any of that bridging finance.

All in all, this was a pretty unlikely rescue package from the outset. The questions raised about exactly who this company is and what was their real ability to borrow funds from unnamed overseas sources adds to this unlikely picture.

It will be interesting to see if anyone took the opportunity to short CMQ while the price was high following the announcement of the funding arrangement, since the shares are likely to fall to about 7c again on Monday...