I agree with Davy. It's not been clearly communicated.The 9...

I agree with Davy. It's not been clearly communicated.

The 9 December 2021 announcement says:

Invictus is pleased to advise that it has executed a farm in option agreement with Cluff Energy Africa Limited. Under the terms of the non-binding agreement, CEA must exercise the option by 31 March 2022 to enter into a binding Farm in Agreement and a Joint Operating Agreement and obtain the necessary funding to meet the Farm in Commitment for 2 wells.

So here we were told that the arrangement with Cluff is an option agreement. In the legal world, if you say you have an "option agreement" this communicates that under the agreement if the option is exercised (presuming it is validly exercised and all preconditions are met) the agreement becomes legally binding - with no further action required. If this were the case, if Cluff exercised their option then IVZ would be bound to Cluff - this doesn't require more input from IVZ. The first announcement clearly implies (at the very least) that if the option is exercised by Cluff then this will activate a binding farm in agreement and joint operating agreement. If the arrangement is something else it should not have been communicated to shareholders as an "option".

The 31 March 2022 announcement says:

Invictus has granted Cluff Energy Africa’s (“CEA”) request to extend its farm-in option expiry (see ASX release on 9 December 2021) and submit an updated binding offer. The new agreed expiry for CEA to exercise its option has been extended from 31 March to 30 April 2022.
We are now told that there are multiple bids.

So here it's described as a "binding offer". Submitting a binding offer is very different from exercising an option. In the former, it's up to Cluff to exercise the option (and IVZ becomes bound if Cluff do so). In the latter, it's up to IVZ to accept the binding bid - and if they do so then Cluff are bound. These are almost the opposite of each other.

Now we are told there are multiple bids. Again, this is fundamentally different from Cluff having an option that they can exercise.

To be clear, I think all of this is very good news. Having multiple bids is an extremely good outcome for IVZ. But some clarity in expression is missing. This might not seem important, but you can bet that if I can spot these inconsistencies then an institutional investor with eyes on IVZ will spot them too.

I think Scott is doing a very good job, but is being let down by his investor relations people.