Even after LNC announces the deal for 1.5bn, it will not get the...

Even after LNC announces the deal for 1.5bn, it will not get the first installment till approval from FIRB of Australia. That will take its own course, probably a few weeks. However LNC needed to start making payments for SAPEX from this week itself.

Most importantly, $17mn placement is NOT done in an hour. You need to prepare the investment prospectus, circulate it to clients, answer their queries, get confirmations, execute the transaction, transfer shares, update registrar and so on. So the placement process has to start last week 6th-12th Oct, for it to be concluded yesterday.

For a minute, think back, last week was the week, when it seemed ALL financial markets were no more at the brink, they were in a tailspin which would only end once they would come crashing down to the ground smithereened to pieces. Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, amongst the few I remember completely CLOSED the stock market, Iceland filed for bankruptcy, "Japan" had to suspend trading during sessions as every day brought around -9% declines, whole of Europe, including the Footsie fell 8% once and then again and then again. Out of the 20 odd experts I watched on Blomberg, 19 kept saying would get worse, and how they sat on cash and gold. In that economic climate, a company with an unproven technology, with not enough cash to meet its current liability of SAPEX managed to sell $17mn of it shares at a 9.4% discount, which in my opinion was 20% higher than what its price would be had it not been in trading halt.

So as far as I see it, it raised capital (how many cos do you know which can do that even now, now that we are up 10%), it got a premium for it shares in the worst possible week in the history of financial hardship, and yet we wonder why?