Ann: Response to media speculation, page-17

The notion of MND buying an extremely poor-quality business like ANG is really quite laughable.

In ANG, we are talking about a company that - in the 14-year period since it listed (a period which saw it participate in the biggest mining boom in decades) - generated total cumulative Free Cash Flow of a mere $5m. (Yep, that's right. Not a typo, only five million dollars of total free cash flow.)
And in only 2 years of the past 14 has its free cash flow reached double-digit millions of dollars.

And over its listed life, while investors received some $52m in total dividends, they had to contribute over $150m of additional equity capital via a series of capital raisings.   And despite this significant net capital contribution that has been required, the company still has around $40m of net debt today, compared to it having started its listed life completely debt-free.

So, put another way, if you owned ANG since it listed, for every one dollar of capital the company returned to you, you need to put three dollars (two of your own dollars plus the one that you got from the company) straight back into the business.  And still your business would own the bank $40m today.

ANG started its listed life with 9 million shares on issue.
Today the company has a staggering 579m shares outstanding.

As a result, ANG's Enterprise Value today is around $165m.

Which means that, if MND wanted to acquire ANG, after the usual 30% takeover premium, MND would need to pay a close to $220m.

If the participants of this forum were offered an investment opportunity for $1,000, from which - over the next 14 years - they could expect to get back a total of $25, which they would subsequently need to pump back into the business, plus an extra $50 out of their own pockets, and then the business would still be in worse financial position than when they first came to own it, not one of them would dream of accepting such an offer, if they were even remotely financially literate.

So,  having observed over the years the astuteness of its collective stewardship of the capital of MND's shareholders, I am quite certain the MND board wouldn't give such a ludicrous idea anything more than a quizzical micro-second of thought, have a brief a chuckle that someone could even think of such a hare-brained notion, and then never think of it again.