"IMO our friends most likely have enough shares now accumulated in a number of pockets to control the SP nicely ... it’s unfortunate that they’ve been able to do so; but those are the breaks and they will probably continue to keep a lid on the SP until some sort of deal is given the final tick."
"Having retail feeling causious and deflated suits them perfectly"
You say it's unfortunate but call them "our friends". And the big grin emoji after "suits them perfectly" is green but definitely smiling.
You are a little difficult to read sometimes Obe Wan. I'm not sure if you are pro or con retail shareholder empowerment.
Good corporate governance makes it harder for a share price to be manipulated. And that is good for retail shareholders. But sometimes the HotCopper commentary suggests that a lot of retail shareholders want to make it harder not easier to get good governance out of AVZ.
There are specific things AVZ could do that they should do for good governance anyway but don't do currently that if they did would make market manipulation harder.
One thing they could do immediately and with very little effort is update their Security Trading Policy so that it only contains Non Trading periods that they will adhere to (get rid of the 3.1(b) reference, and such that when waiver provisions (section 5) and exceptional circumstances provisions (section 3.7) are used it is always necessary to get prior written clearance from another director so the waiver or exceptional circumstance cannot be applied by the Chairman to his own benefit.
(20min delay)