Cooper Energy sounding out brokers for a raise to potentially buy back Orbost

Edit: (See Australian Article Update) Cooper is allegedly close to agreeing a deal with APA to acquire Orbost for $200M (a tad overpriced for a dysfunctional plant).

I'm hearing COE will update the market tomorrow morning regarding a potential purchase of Orbost, and may go into a trading halt based on update, yet to receive full details regarding potential raising and interest from their initial broker discussions so take with a bowl of salt.

I'd guess they're looking to raise ~125M @ 0.18-0.2 range, not sure where the other part of the reported purchase is coming from, I assume a new loan, or increased in their current facilites?

Does this suggest O3PD is official deffered for a few years atleast? Makes no sense otherwise to destroy shareholders value, and lock in these low prices into the share. Plus 280M debt on 450M equity post purchase still keeps them leveraged to the max with minimal space for growth capex.

Very disappointing outcome for shareholders, first APA fails, then we pay for remediation (on a plant we didn't own, and we paid for half of purchases (despite it being APA's fault) and now we raise at the bottom to buy a dud plant).

Really hope ASIC investigates COE and APA, because something smells foul (and it's not just their gas).

As i type this, Australian has just reported it too...