Potential lawsuit is something I have been thinking of this morning.
Firstly I would assume AFR legal department sign off on any article they publish, society today is very litigious.
I would also like to know more information regarding the message left with BIG by AFR that was not responded to. As AFR have had multiple articles of a positive nature management may not have had time to respond as dealing with much bigger issues if they thought the article was of a 'general' nature. If the message left was along the lines of 'I'm writing an article that questions directors shareholders through other companies and am questioning your relationship with FC and how your clients actually pay'. If that was the message left I think management should have made time to engage with the journo and provide more information that put these fires out before they started. As stated without knowing the context of the message left that was not responded to it hard to say what the right course of action would be. Management, especially in light of what we have recently seen with GSW and how an AFR article can have significant impact probably, in hindsight, should have handled this in a different manner.
This morning I have been looking at shortman and comparing to dates of certain articles by certain media organisations.
Here is GSW link
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=gsw .
With that example there is a massive spike in shorts, 75% from 4% the previous day on 11/1 to 12/1 and the following days. A certain media organisation published an article of a 'negative' nature on 19/1.
Here is BIG link
https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=big.
The journo of recent AFR article claims he attempted to make contact with the company on evening of 5/1 and subsequently did not receive a response and published the article.
An article is not written the day it is published, I assume many people within media organisations discuss content and subjects for articles many days before, these people would know what type of market reaction would occur with whats published. They may also ask certain institutions or brokers for commentary on what that means for the company in question.
I let anyone who bothers to read this draw there on conclusions on whatever this may or may not mean.
Anyway I am not making any accusations of foul play however if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck.
Loose lips sink ships....they also buy bigger boats.
