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- 19 February 2016
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Oh my. 4 directors resigned today after sending out a stunning letter to shareholders - specifically stating they:and fallen out of bed; certainly no buzz about this one .... HUM dropped nearly 40% to 43c on Friday. Back above 50c today, but only just.
and Latitude LFS not doing too well, either, falling because their growth pathway could be crimped
"cannot remain on the Board of Directors with Andrew Abercrombie"
"As you will be aware, Andrew Abercrombie undertook a strident campaign against the proposed sale, strongly encouraging shareholders to vote against the transaction. Much of the commentary he published was emotion-driven, inflammatory, and provided little clarity on what precise future strategy he envisages for HCF, or on what basis he believed Latitude were going to pay more for HCF. There is still essentially no clarity on the future strategy he envisages for HCF. Some of the information he published was false and misleading, which we instructed him to take down from his website. He persisted in telling shareholders to vote against the transaction."
Given this, the Majority Directors asked Latitude to improve the terms of its offer, which it refused to do. Public pressure from Humm shareholders threatening to side with Andrew Abercrombie and vote down the transaction had no impact on Latitude’s position, which was unsurprising given the deteriorating economic environment, crashing sector stock prices and lack of any alternative bidding interest. The Majority Directors believe Andrew Abercrombie overplayed his hand quite fundamentally in a transaction that could have been very beneficial for shareholders"
On the statements above and given Mr. Abercrombie is (or was?) a liberal party treasurer and sometimes in the media referred to as a liberal party power broker I suspect things might start to get a little interesting for HUM, himself, and the board. Not only are there going to be confused angry shareholders, but there will also be confused angry shareholders who are labor supporters.. The last 3 years have been a debacle for HUM/FXL and really most of the listing history of this company has been a dumpster fire as far as shareholder returns. Andrew has been there from the beginning.
On a related note situations like this reinforce my "sell half now and the rest in a week or two" philosophy when a takeover is announced. So glad to have dumped this junk. Was a poor investment.