General Meeting Yesterday12 Jan 2023 12:05
Apologies for the delay in posting a report on yesterday's meeting. It was sp****ly attended composing mainly board members and advisors. I think there were only 2-3 PIs. To be fair to Wolfe, he did not try to close down or limit questions during the meeting. Key points to emerge:
a) No decisions yet on the amount or timing of the return of capital other than if indeed it takes place, it be in Q1 23-24 (ie Apr-Jun 23). Assuming authorisations in place s it could be anything up to 3.1p but not necessarily the full amount. Clearly all depended on the success or otherwise of the FSP. On how it could be paid, Chaffe said there were a range of options but typically it could be either a dividend or share buy back (groan if latter!!)
b) No really convincing answer about why the deadline for bid process was so tight (especially given Christmas and New Year holidays). But Stifel said that this did not adversely affect the number or quality of bids given that they had been in discussion with interested parties for some time and a lot of work had been done in advance.
c) On skin in the game, Wolfe said that it had been impractical for Board members to buy shares because, for one reason or another, there had effectively been a closed period since the AGM where this was raised by Shareholders as a concern. Again I wasn't wholly persuaded.
d) there was a discussion about the decision not proceed with P8. The Board took the view that there was too much risk for Shareholders given the lack of comfort from the NSTA that an application would be successful. (Comment: Slightly ironic given that the BOD had been willing to massively dilute shareholder value in the giveaway to the Bondholders.)
Notwithstanding my misgivings about the current Board, my own view is that we should be prepared to give them some time to try and conclude the FSP. Clearly CA reached a similar view. Still much to play for,
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