Media Updates, page-12667

On the 29th March I posted the following 2 posts after listening to the conference call, the first my thoughts, the second a question from the conference call. Today it is even more evident that there is something behind the scene between A2m and Synlait in regards to demand forecasting and production, it will be interesting as we go forward as to who is glossing up the outlook and who is biting the bullet and telling it as it is. Conspiracy theories are great but at the end of the day the truth will come out, the writing has been on the wall, how you read it is your choice but most of the time these sort of things never end pretty for anyone!



"To me the most concerning thing out of the whole call was that A2m seem to have lowered their forecast to SM1 for the second half of this calendar year and it doesnt appear to be samr related. To put it in my simple terms A2m provide a rolling 12 month forecast to Sm1 on a monthly basis and in Feb this was changed for the second half of this year(Aug -Dec) and not for the better.They were very guarded in regards to giving any real details basically saying that it is a question for A2m not them as to why, which is fair enough, surely A2m must give an update as i am sure a few who have listened to the call have some genuine concerns. This really has the smack of Hearn control all over it and the usual lack of updates to shareholders in the past."

"Nick Mar: So just to be clear, you already had an update from a2 for that part of the August to December, but then your model was already telling you a different number to that and you had to revise it down or the a2 model came down towards another load than what you'd already previously had? It just doesn't add up if you already had 12 months' data and you're saying that you've taken too optimistic a view previously and had to revise that down for a period you already had a forecast from a2 from?
Grant Watson: Yeah, I'm not quite sure where you going that, Nick. We had a view of demand that we were working to for the a2 business, let's just say for the entire calendar year. Late January we got an indicative update that was firmed up in mid-Feb. We reran the numbers and effectively that related to a reduction in demand for the second half of this financial year, and the first half of next financial year"