Ramamba - I suspect you are absolutely correct in your...

Ramamba - I suspect you are absolutely correct in your assessment, however, the current CTN Board would have had to provide its approval of the assignment. If they did proper due diligence on manager selection, would they have selected Naos? we'll never know because the Board only considered Naos due to the $12.5m delivered to save CGA (which Naos also owns 14.5% of). The responsibility rests totally on the shoulders of the current Board - they could have said "no" to the assignment, accepted CGA's resignation, and then appointed Naos on its merits. Had that happened shareholders probably wouldn't feel so involved in a stinky deal.
Incidentally, these assignment clauses are commonplace within these agreements but they are not contemplated to be used to deliver a significant financial benefit to the out-going manager i.e. the agreement is not meant to be a commodity to be sold to the highest/(only) bidder as a bail-out mechanism.