ANY letter directed to the Australian Stock Exchange and marked as "urgent" requires further investigation. The Thor Mining missive was dispatched with great hurry to the ASX yesterday according to the marking on the announcement, but was not posted for shareholder perusal until today.
It concerns how it approached the bizarre move by Chinese metals heavyweight Hunan to pull out of a partnership to develop Thor's Molyhil project in the Northern Territory.
The story goes that Hunan couldn't even be bothered to pick up the phone and tell the Thor boys about the decision, preferring to email them on the morning of April 27.
The ASX has taken up with Thor issues of continuous disclosure and when the regulator comes knocking, it usually becomes pretty complicated.
But it is not so much about the Hunan decision to walk away, rather an earlier exchange of emails weeks before when Hunan wanted an extension from Thor to conduct its due diligence on the project before it proceeded with funding.
Interestingly, Thor did not consider the April 13 approach material enough to warrant a statement to investors.
Its reason for that is best explained in Thor's own words.
"The market was informed on 13 March 2007 that Hunan had to complete due diligence by 15 April 2007, with best endeavours to conclude commercial finance terms and suitable off-take by 30 April 2007.
Absent an announcement on or before 15 April 2007 that Hunan had decided to proceed, the market was aware that the transaction was not going to proceed.
The company did not receive a notice from Hunan advising of its intention to proceed by 15 April 2007 and as such there was no need for an announcement. "
In a roundabout way, Thor is saying that its investors were always going to believe that Hunan was going to pull out if it didn't tell Thor by the April 15 deadline that it wanted to continue on with the partnership.
Nevertheless, they were still unaware that Hunan had called for the deadline extension.
Thor, in its wisdom, told Hunan on April 16 that it could have an extension to April 30 with commercial finance terms and an off-take arrangement to be done by May 11.
Thor then called a trading halt on April 17. It told the ASX that because this was a "new transaction", the halt was an appropriate action.
Thor again: "If this proposal (the new deadline and commercial financing arrangement) was not acceptable to Hunan, then the market was informed by virtue of the 13 March 2007 announcement."
What they are saying is that the status quo was maintained. No news from Hunan meant to investors that it was going to walk away.
Thor got a response from Hunan on April 17 around 1pm. It then called the halt to prepare an announcement that Hunan was back in the game.
Hang in there folks, this is where the game gets interesting.
What ASX really wants to know is what Gregory Durack, an executive of Thor, and Damian Delaney, company chief financial officer, were up to given that the pair are managing director and company secretary of Batavia Mining which sold a sway of holdings in Thor on April 13.
That was the time when Hunan said it wanted an extension to the due diligence deadline and the first real indication that the partnership was looking shaky.
You don't need to be a sceptic to think that that requires further explanation.
Here's Thor's response: "All directors, officers and executives are fully aware that they must treat information obtained in their capacity as directors, officers and executives as confidential".
Pretty predictable stuff and sounds like it came straight from the Management 101 textbook.
Who knows if that will satisfy the powers-that-be at the ASX.
And who knows if it hasn't piqued the interest of ASIC. Stay tuned.
(20min delay)