Congratulations to minority shareholders

All in my personal opinion.

Congratulations to ALL non- Todd shareholders.

This announcement today by the Takeovers Panel is a big, big win for minority FMS shareholders.

It seems that hundreds of shareholders took action. That’s a remarkable response, and made a big difference.
Everybody but FMS Board knew what a lousy deal this was for the other 4,279 shareholders. Go figure.

Well done to all those many, many shareholders who wrote to ASIC, wrote to ASX, wrote to politicians, wrote to media, picketed the offices of FMS.
Well done to the like-minded groups who acted independently of each other, but were all of the same view that FMS shareholders were getting a lousy deal.
All those letters and emails and calls made a big difference, and contributed to shareholders getting some justice.

Well done to Mr Brendan Dunstan and those who funded that expensive action.
And even bigger cheer to all those smaller shareholders who donated time and money to the legal process, even though many of them only had small parcels.
Well done to Mr OCJ also, for standing up for their investment, and making their application.

It is also a HUGE slap and wake-up call for the entire board of FMS, and for the Controlling shareholder Todd Corp.
It is a huge wakeup call for the directors of Todd Corp itself.
It is a huge wake-up call for those parties intent on seizing the principle asset of FMS, its iron ore in PIOP, without following the rules.

Whilst it seems that the Declaration by the Panel does not prohibit FMS from attempting the delisting FMS in the future, it reinforces the process that FMS must abide by the Corp Act, and must act in the best interests of ALL shareholders.

Clearly the Panel took the view that the original proposal failed to do that.

So if as one suspects, FMS continues down the path of a Delisting, once again we minority shareholders will need to oppose that course, because a Delisting will directly lead to serious losses on our investment.

We have a very valuable asset in PIOP – it seems there are parties out there who appear desperate to get hold of it, so we need to be vigilant and we need to continue to protect the value we collectively have in that asset.