intel,Great move by CUB to up it to 4.9%. The quicker the alchol...

intel,

Great move by CUB to up it to 4.9%. The quicker the alchol kicks in the less likely to realise just how bad it tastes!

Re the comment the other day speculating that ASOF will only relist so that they can invoke compulsory acquisition, I should point out that the 90% rule actually has nothing to do with the ASX or listing. I believe it lives under the Corporations Act and therefore applies equally to unlisted companies.

I also suggest that if an aggressor wanted to go to compulsory acquisition, or generally mop up the remaining shares on the register via offer then its usually much easier to do it when the company isn't listed. The reason being that when a company is no longer listed then existing shareholders are trapped because there is no readily available market for them to dispose of their shares and thus the takeover offer is the only way for most holders to dispose of their shares. Based on past experience this usually convinces 95%+ of holder to sell into any offer. CA is only required for a few stragglers, half of who have either forgotten that they have the shares, have moved and didn't get the doco, or who are no longer in the land of the living.

One has to remember the usual motives to going to 100% ownership though. Its usually done when you want to dispense with the cost overheads of listing and reporting to minority owners, and all the associated rules which no longer apply when the company is private. If your interest is soley to control the entity and insert your own management then 60% is plenty. If you want to make other shareholders votes worthless then 70-90% is sufficient depending on what you intend to do.

I am not convinced by the arguments from Muss that ASOF would want to incur the expense of remaining listed in order to continue to access the capital markets. MST has drained the market and its supporters and its inability to raise further capital is the reason this discussion is being had. Since the facilities, R&D staff, management and company mojo have been dispensed with it seems unlikely that the capital markets could be tapped again any time soon. ASOF may have had to promise to keep it listed for the time being but their desire to so is unlikely to be anything more than ticking the box IMHO.

In fact ASOFs own actions going back a long time didn't seems consistant with an investor intent on helping the company progress to sales. When ASOF sued MST and demanded the loan be repaid early, alarm bells and evacuation sirens should have been heard everywhere. Management tried to sweep it under the carpet as a misunderstanding but this was the point in time that MST reached the point of no return. ASOF's jaws clamped shut and the MST fish could no get away. Convincing other shareholders to put in a few extra bucks in a final capital raising as a condition of the deal was however a masterstroke by ASOF. Ever wonder what happened to all this money? See June 13 announcement and you will see what happened to the produce from the much discussed final milking of the cow.

Almost exactly 2 weeks after MST paid out its remaining cash to ASOF in the form of an interest payment, management had to close up shop. But everything was supposed to be okay because Luxinfest was going to save the day. Remember the writeup on those guys? Was it really a surprise when they just disappeared Phillino style and there was no money. Just like the Philines bank transfer, everything just disappeared no questions asked. No recourse, no questions as to why this happened yet again. Once might be unlucky but 3 times?

ASOFs agenda is still not completely clear. That they didn't want MST to prgress in its current form into sales seems quite obvious. It could be that they simply wanted to maximise their ownership and control before allowing it to progress, or it might be that they simply though the sum of the parts was worth more than the entity.

I know some of this sounds like I told you so but it isn't intended to be. I think if you want to understand what is happening you can't ignore the actions of the past. There still some expressing the potential desire to hand over more cash for gods sake. So what next? What is the end game? Thats the question being debated right.

Well, what if there was a buyer for select pieces of strategic IP. What if certain weapons already in development used IP owned by MST. Given the choices of paying royalties, or acquiring the IP, it would seem logical to engage a entity to see if it could acquire the IP at a price cheaper than the royalties are likely to be.

Convincing MST to sell its IP would be a tough ask. Its investors wanted to see it products go to market after all these years and not sell the silverware. Forcing an IP sale would require majority voting rights or outright ownership. Without delving into the rules, 90% should do it.

So will MST relist? Will ASOF acquire the rest of the stock? With all the R&D staff, facilities etc gone how will ASOF progress the products? These are the questions being asked. Sadly I suspect none of these questions could turn out to be relevant.

Ever seen how those shark fishermen work? They catch the shark, cut off the fins which are the only bit worth anything to them and throw the poor animal back into the ocean to flap around for a while before dieing. Are MSTs patents the fins on the shark?

All my opinion only. I can't prove a thing. Would however be very interested in chatting to the ex management team / board and hearing in their confident sounding voices, exactly what they think happened. Was it really just a misunderstanding? Who actually introduced them to Luxinvest? What were the specific condition of the ASOF agreement that were supposedly breached? Who really was their Phillipino friend and was the bank transfer documentation real? What specifically did the Canadians say in response to questions regarding the MST references into their documents?

Shareholders need closure. The future of the tech will not involve them but they had a right to know the truth about past events IMO.