Noble may just be incompetent. They had a 10% stake in Precious Metals Australia (PMA) which changed it's name and became Windimurra Vanadium (WVL), and also Noble made a pledge to buy 10% of Windimurra product at any price. Then after director Roderick Smith wrote his thesis on why vanadium prices were going to go ballistic and the world needs Windimurra, and so on, and what a bargain they were, and sucking in all the small (and big) investors, he then sold his entire stake worth millions to Macquarie Bank and fled the country quickly and then the stock was insolvent in a couple of weeks.
Xtrata was involved in conspiracy to close the mine at Windimurra because they had that other vanadium producer in South Africa. There was a court case in Western Australia. Can anyone see in some way that Noble and Xtrata may have benefitted in some sense from the closure of Windimurra and now likewise these two may benefit from the closure or firesale of all of Cockatoo's assets in the same manner?
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