Shorts outstanding were 12.5 million on 15 April and dropped...

Shorts outstanding were 12.5 million on 15 April and dropped nearly 5 million to 7.8 million on 20 April. 24 million shares were issued in the placement on 16 April.

So it looks to me as if the shorts got around 20% of the placement, which allowed them to return those shares to the original owners without having to buy on market and risk pushing the price back up.

True the shorts outstanding spiked to 14 million again on 25 May and were still 12.3 million on 16 June, when the revenue downgrade was issued.

By June 29 shorts had dropped by 2.5 million to 9.8 million. They would have used the sales from holders taking tax losses in June to reduce their exposure again thus limiting the upside price pressure. That is some of the buying in supporting the PET price before 30 June was due to shorters close out positions.

https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=pet