great share buy back, page-16

Nev,

The buyback HAS stopped the downward push in the shareprice from the "churnmeisters", as you say. This, as you say, is a crucial month for the company to finally prove to the market its 240-odd MT at 0.48% Cu is really worth a spittoon of sputum.

As you say, the buyback has stopped the share price from falling. It has also spent a bunch of money.

Money which I have said before, the company must spend on developing the mine. Money which could be used to fund the equity contribution to the eventual equity/debt split of whatever the funding mix happens to be.

So, we need to ask ourselves the question.

Will the funding providers of the debt and equity for the mine development believe the current share price as being a fair market price of the securities in CDU when there is a contribution to the share price signal from the share buyback?

Will they stick money in on the VWAP of the securities minus the typical 15% or will there be a skew lower on this to balance the risk that the share buyback is creating a false price signal by - as you admit yourself - artificially propping the price?

I don't know. I'm no investment banking wunderkind. I just reckon this share buyback is a ridiculous churning of shareholder money. The churnmeister is WM, not the brokers. WM is churning shareholder money via spending money buyingg shares only to have to sell them later to fund equity.

What a joke.