Member Info for addicknt

Q, I understood your post perfectly and I'm afraid it's you who fails to grasp the reality of the situation, as in due course will be proved. Sometimes it seems to me even you don't understand what you write.

Q, "one or two years for dd". Nonsense.
"You don't get a bid for a project of this size unless it's hostile". Double nonsense.
"We have a strong defensive position". Triple nonsense.
However, I do agree that a jv isn't attractive. We'd be diluted to irrelevance and it wouldn't provide an attractive return for shareholders.

Fair point, Bozi.

Fortissimo, when this was first announced I made the assumption the board had already consulted our main shareholders. Not for the first time, I was wrong.
Frankly, after the various agm humiliations and subsequent protestations from the board (and public statements), I thought they were committed to dialogue with our main shareholders. Of course, it has been portrayed that the very fact a change has been made is proof they are talking. However, it beggars belief it wasn't done beforehand and that they've now been forced into yet another embarrassing climb- down. It's also embarrassing that they tried to get something through which reeks of snouts in the trough. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Bozi, the reason there's been a heavy focus on the change of control provision is that it's the feature which has had to be altered. Clearly, it had a purpose in mind and our main shareholders and many of us private investors didn't like it.
Good post rcgl.

DBW, agreed. The "optics" (ughh, ghastly new management speak) do look strange. The argument that the proposal would allow them to recruit top bods doesn't really hold water. If a candidate was really interested in working for us, he/she could be persuaded that the option/bonus scheme would be in place post-agm in December. And why any new starter should benefit from a scheme if a bid occurs before the agm is way beyond me.
The truth is we don't have the faintest idea what's going on in the background, but something like this does raise questions.

To conclude: if our boys want to get rich quick, they are now going to have to do something considerably more radical than flogging a minority stake of our prime asset. And that is a very good thing.

Bubble, I'm not sure I understand you. Surely, all someone would need to do is to offer for a higher percentage of whichever asset is being sold; they wouldn't have to increase the implied price? You could argue that a higher percentage would demand a greater value, but I'm not sure a bidder would see it that way.
I think we're getting a bit tied in knots on this. When you boil it all down, the proposed resolution would have allowed our management to benefit from what would have been a sale of a minority stake. I found this objectionable and voted accordingly; it also appears some of leading shareholders felt the same way.
I'm glad they've backed down, but am disappointed they tried it on in the first place. We are meant to be improving our governance, the proposal was the polar opposite.

Q, this is simply a question of management reward and has nothing to do with defence mechanisms, diverse books, or any other such thing.

It seems to me as if our board were predicting the partial sale of Cascabel and that the percentage they had in mind to be sold was 30%. This would have triggered the bonus scheme and they were trying to persuade us that 30% represented a change of control. Of course, it's no such thing as our boys would carry on running the show, but with a lot more cash/shares in their back pockets.
I raised my objections to this sort of thing when the details first emerged and I most certainly won't be changing my vote.
Bubble, I assume you mean they increase the percentage offer ?

Q, how does it make a bid harder?

Fortissimo, not quite the same thing.

SM, agreed, it does make it look as if they are predicting such an event.
On the broader point; when has 30% ever represented "change of control"? It was a try-on and frankly, a rather shabby one.
Thank heavens we have some major shareholders who've got the power to exercise this sort of veto.

it seems that some of our shareholders didn't like the money for nothing scheme.

It seems to me that this has been due to the unrest. It's probably also true that some folk bought in expectation of a bid by end June and have taken fright.

Rcgl, thanks for the reply and I take it in the spirit it was meant. I'm just being very dense. Equilibrium in markets suggest to price stability.

We are still in the same position as we have been all day i.e buys and sells are almost exactly the same. So how do we explain a 14% drop? It seems very odd to me.

Fort, your last sentence is interesting. We've been trying to flog/jv some of our concessions for a long time now and despite being told there's significant interest and deals are about to announced, absolutely sod-all has actually happened.
It's this type of announcement that has historically led to a great deal of cynicism and I'd rather hoped we'd seen the back of it.

The one reason for the fall we can discount is that there's some vast sell-off happening.
The buys almost exactly match the sells.

Pbow, interesting though your trawling through the media is, can I suggest you stop :)

Fort, I agree with much of what you say, however, as we approach 2025 the element of political risk ,which, as we know, has been significantly mitigated by Lasso, will return.
We were hugely held back by the previous uncertainty and it could easily repeat itself. For me, this suggests we are currently in a sweet spot and our board should maximise the opportunity by selling Alpala asap.
All of us breathed a sigh of relief when Lasso was elected and I have no wish to run the risk of a far left candidate winning the next election, which seems to me quite likely. Why do I say this? Because Ecuador will be subject to the same economic woes as the rest of us times 10, and in these circumstances the electorate could easily be swayed by the usual left wing rhetoric.
I am certain none of this has escaped our board.