trading halt please, page-21

Couple of things:

Firstly
- with a “please explain” the allocated adviser of the ASX, I gather that is Shannon, will contact the company to put them on notice that a speeding ticket will be issued and to find out if there is any information that should be disclosed;
- the letter is issued;
- then you have until prior to the open of the market the following day to respond formally.
The advisors are not there to provide advice and have discussion and are instead a compliance function. So there is no back-and-forth discussion. The only back-and-forth discussion would be between DML and their solicitors to ensure that they are not breaching LR 3.1.

Generally, with a speeding ticket you should expect no disclosure is provided otherwise the company would go into an immediate trading halt for fear of any leak. So, since DML has not entered into a trading halt at this point any you would expect that the response from the company will be as useful as the previous announcements.

I can appreciate that DML may be in discussions regarding a sale, however if there was even a hint of non-compliance with LR 3.1 and considering that DML would be on the radar of both ASX and ASIC (considering the number of complaints that they would have received to date) I would expect that the directors would be quick to pull the trigger on a trading halt for fear of further action.

Secondly, and on the other hand, the fact that both Macquarie and UBS have not been playing their game of sea shells of late would indicate that something is going on, but not enough for disclosure under LR 3.1. Or, maybe instead they are tidying up their books leading into year end and causing the price to fall in the process (not that I would say that this process had the intended outcome of driving the price down of course).

Thirdly, considering the stories coming out about the shadow banking system in China and the drying up of liquidity, any offer from Cathay would need to be evidenced by a non-China bank guarantee or proof that the cash is in a bank account before I would believe any offer is real.