I think long story short, the market does know all of this, the...

I think long story short, the market does know all of this, the company has been run as a private family company and profitability/total shareholder return from my impression has not really been management's main concern even for the medium term like 5 years plus. Maybe if your horizon is 10 years plus SDI's actions might make sense but not really and meanwhile external shareholders are left in the lurch and the majority shareholders are taking significant salaries which at this point would put them into the almost top 0.1% in Australia income wise from the company anyway.

If they were that concerned about the company they could have dropped their salaries for a couple of years and paid debt back a lot quicker and then they would have had the money to invest over the last 10 years but management have clearly stated they hired 2nd tier or lower staff in the US previously because they just hired whoever they could get for the salaries they were offering at the time.

We will see what the remuneration ends up being now the new CEO is in but I don't expect to see much change there in total compensation. Before the share price rise the top 2 executives were taking about 1.5% of the companies total market capitalisation as a salary each year.

The CEO of FPH makes about 50% more than the SDI CEO and that is a company with a $4.5 billion dollar market cap its a NZ company so they pay less but executive pay is a reason why the profitability of the company was low. Now as a proportion of market cap to be similar his salary and his deputies would be about $60 million.

SDI have just finally grown revenue enough where the executive salaries aren't such a huge drain on profits anymore.