Completely agree. Santos did the same thing and scaled back shareholders (including me) to give cheap shares to underwriters.
The reason given by AWB is "in the interests of fairness to all shareholders" But you have to ask yourself "is this just corporate crap speak?". The answer of course is yes. All shareholders had the opportunity to participate. Some chose not to. How is it any fairer to those shareholders who did not participate to give shares to underwriters instead of shareholders who chose to participate. And I can guarantee that were the current price below the offer price, there is no way that AWB would have scaled back retail holders as underwriters would have screamed. As a result if you apply for lots of overs, you open yourself up to asymmetric risk. If the share price tanks, you share in the down side. If the share price rockets, all the cream goes to the underwriters.
BTW if your entitlement was 100 shares and you applied for $15,000 worth of additional shares you will get them. But if you applied for $15,001 shares you will only get 500 shares. Much less. Gross stupidity or what?
Not a AWB holder
AWB Price at posting:
$1.20 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held