at the time of the Annual Report only 7 of the top 20 option...

at the time of the Annual Report only 7 of the top 20 option holders were in the top 20 share holders and there have been 6 million options traded recently anyway. So the extent of overlap is not that great.

Someone has also been buying shares and may have decided the best way to build a stake without pushing up the share price too much is to buy options at under 1 cps and then convert. That at least means the company will get some cash in January even if the share price is only around 25 cps. We will see.

The point is if the company can get the options converted it will have plenty of cash to fund growth. Paying a small dividend would be neither here nor there if it helps get most options converted as that would provide $10 million in cash.