"Admittedly they always had money in the bank as exemplified by...

"Admittedly they always had money in the bank as exemplified by the fact that at the beginning of this July there was A$67 million in the kitty. The interesting thing, however, is that brokers have failed to keep up with progress at the company despite a background of deals and good news in the iron ore industry"

One possible reason brokers don't keep up is because they have so much cash. Brokers don't routinely cover stocks of this size unless there is something in it for them by way of placements or other underwriting fees. If they do they usually want to be paid for their trouble. I've noticed that quite a few stocks that went into the GFC fairly well cashed up haven't recovered nearly as well as some real dogs that made large issues of cheap shares near the bottom.

Will be interesting to find out who the UMC buyer is and whether the pace of deal-making increases because of it.