Seals, hiYes, Seals your suggestion is a lot better than buying...

Seals, hi

Yes, Seals your suggestion is a lot better than buying the whole of MAK, so I find our Board's behaviour inexplicable, except if it is further to ingratiate themselves with our new cornerstone investor or if it is to pay Danegeld to Drummond (MAK with Wonarah on its own doesn't offer the quality of employment Mr Drummond expects, so our Board is happy to screw me by Mehdiabad dilution to buy off Drummond?).

I am not convinced at all by our Board that we even need to buy the other part of Sandpiper to finance it. All they have said is that "Sandpiper will be easier to finance". To be convinced I would prefer a better explanation than that.

Is it that the debt financiers don't like that arrangement?

Is it that Australia (despite being wealthier per capita than the UK) has too small a population of investors to cope with two companies competitively pestering the same potential investors to supply equity for the same project?

Is it that an equity raising at any particular time would disadvantage one company more than another in dilution cost, particularly if one company dictated the timing of the raising to the other?

In my simple brain if you are of a certain size with no revenue and no cash on the balance sheet and with a certain need for funds (dictated by the size of the project), that the price charged for new finance is pretty well fixed: you cannot do anything about it to get it cheaper by amalgamating with another company because if you can the saving you make will be wiped out by the additional cost of amalgamating. The overriding principle is that corporate financiers are greedy (Mr Lawrenson's options and his defence of them comes to mind) and whatever you try to do to get a saving out of them, they will find you out. The ability of airlines to discriminate between different types of passengers and charge different amounts for the same flight comes to mind. So I am suspicious of Jordinson's explanation for why we need to buy the other part of Sandpiper at all.

On other matters I can't see anything in the future but conflict between Israel and Iran, and if one foresees that, then it must be obvious Iran will lose. Below I think shows the reasons for the conflict: Khamenei and his unnuanced view of Israel (the keffiyeh around his neck always amuses me - a symbol of solidarity with the Arab street against the ruling elites of the Gulf kingdoms allied to the West?) on the one hand, and on the other the economic threat to Israel's viability as high value human capital would perhaps prefer to live elsewhere if it has a choice). I expect Israel will cope with 300 "Shahab 3" missiles coming from Iran as well as attacks from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza simultaneously - and I am sure Iran, after a defeat, will end up with a better quality of leadership. We'll see.

An additional grievance for women in Iran now is that they are not allowed to study accounting, engineering or pure chemistry according to a report in the New York Times.

“Some fields are not very suitable for women’s nature,” said Abolfazl Hasani, a senior Iranian education official, according to the Rooz Online report.

Teheran University only accepts men on forestry, mathematics and courses relating to natural resources! It is hard not to laugh.