The more I think about the MinRes teleconference the weirder I think it was.
Ellison opened with a joke which because he couldn't carry it off, came over as very offensive ("There's 151 people on the call. Don't you all have better things to do?"). When people start with a joke like that, it's usually out of a mix of arrogance and lack of confidence.
As someone mentioned before (rcman?), he brushed off a question about the potential tax advantages, claiming that the financials were irrelevant (really?) and that MinRes hadn't talked to the ATO because there wasn't any point. Stating that financials are irrelevant is not only not believable, but implies corporate negligence that a company could make a TO offer, in the realm of hundreds of millions of dollars, and not understand the tax implications. Due diligence is the name of the game and he's clearly not playing that game.
He said how the AGO board had done a brilliant job, but in the next breath said AGO was in trouble again and in need of "palliative care"; that it would be worth less than a cent in a few months if it wasn't rescued from it's own demise, though he also said that he thought the price of low grade IO would increase over the next 6-12 months. In question time, someone asked him why then didn't he wait until AGO got cheaper (which I thought was a brilliant retort), to which all Ellison could say was that they may as well just get on with the takeover.
In the last few minutes his language slipped into ockerisms (saying 'youse' instead of 'you'), for reasons I can't fathom, except maybe he was starting to feel the pressure.
Having finally caught up with all the posts, I'm starting to feel more optimistic that: (1) people power could have some influence; and (2) a more acceptable offer might be made by another company, as others have suggested. I do like the idea of an extra-ordinary meeting (or whatever) being called, with a motion to remove the board, if only to get media attention to the bizarre situation of a board of a listed company so blatantly selling out on its own shareholders.
