Betting their jobs on failure

Despite mounting evidence that Leigh Creek (LCK) has the potential to decimate IPL's fertilser business, the Board and management of IPL have continued to bet the profitability of the company and their jobs that LCK will never have the financial capacity to challenge IPL.
IPL turned down substantial offers for their fertiliser business last year, despite knowing that LCK posed a serious potential earnings threat, especially as LCK's published cost of urea production was more than 65% lower than IPL's.
The Board and management appear to have made a bet that LCK will fail in its efforts to raise the capital required to build a 1.0mtpa urea facility.
What is a business worth that has an uncompetitive operational business model? The answer is, very little. It will be fascinating to watch what marketing and investor relations gymnastics the Board and management perform to explain their position should LCK succeed in getting their project up. They know the threat but have consistently gambled that the competition will never get up.