WMC held their AGM yesterday...and watching the stock trade yesterday basically mirrored the sentiment coming out of that meeting.
Only a few points that emerged from the meeting proved noteworthy. Perhaps the most important (negative) to come out of the meeting was that the demerger has, once again, been pushed back. WMC really do appear to be testing the resolve of their large holders by continuing to push back an issue that initially was supposed to be settled 3 months ago.
Morgan blamed the Federal Government for the delay. Another point to note was Chairman Burgess's attempt to rally the stock by stating that 'Alcoa could still be vitally interested'. Initially that sparked a rally, before people realised that it was just more hot air out of management. This was confirmed as just bulldust when (very) late yesterday in the US, Alcoa shrugged off the news that it remained the most likely buyer for WMC Ltd.'s stake in the Alcoa World Alumina & Chemicals (AWAC) joint venture. An Alcoa spokesman said there have been no further discussions with WMC over AWAC. "We haven't done anything at this point since last year and we are content with our current agreement," he added. For mine, that is pretty plain English. Despite these setbacks -- the blame for much of which is squarely with management -- we STRONGLY retain the view that WMC at these levels is a solid point of entry for the stock .
