"given the KNOWN intent is to repay VERY quickly."Intent is...

"given the KNOWN intent is to repay VERY quickly."

Intent is irrelevant. If you think a lender is going to take that into account you are being very naive. They are in it to make money and part of that is mitigating risk. Given the problems AWD have had with securing funds it is quite reasonable to put a premium on risk especially when they are the lender of last resort. The bottom of the pecking order when it comes to recovering funds if it all goes pear shaped.

I took out a loan a few years back to buy a remote block of land for $50k than I intended to develop. The fee for payout less than 2 years from drawdown was $3k. The cost of legals/establishment would no doubt have been covered if I kept the loan for it's expected life but I didn't so they covered their asses to ensure costs were covered. That was land... A very hard asset that doesn't take much investigation or due dilligence and is very uncomplicated to repossess in the event of default. This lender will have a much harder time. If I was in their position I really wouldn't call $75k in shares an excessive fee... I'd rather cash but that's obviously easier said than done. Especially when you consider if they do fail to get full finance (of which there are two potential points of failure) that $75k of shares won't be worth anything near $75k.

Stop moaning.. This is pretty normal for 3rd tier bridging finance of a high risk project. It will either come off and $75k will be a drop in the bucket or it won't and they will end up with the same portion of bugger all that we'll all have.