Hi all, I've just started looking into the childcare sector as...

Hi all, I've just started looking into the childcare sector as it seems from my preliminary research that it's hit a cyclical low and am trying to get my head around the substantial ownership in MFD.

As of Dec 2017, there were just 2 substantial ownership holdings (Riversdale Road Shareholding Company [RRSC] with 7.26m shares [24.2%] and DW and MW Clarke with 2.9m [9.7%]). According to the TNK prospectus, RRSC was a vendor in Think Childcare's acquisition of childcare centres and RRSC received shares as consideration for the sale. I would've assumed the same thing happened for MFD, but the Form 603 says consideration given for all 7.26m shares was cash. The 2017 AR states that out of DW/MW Clarke's 2.9m shares, 0.1m of that was held by RRSC (also confirmed in Form 603) so there seems to be a closer relationship between the 2 parties. Basically I'm curious to see if anyone's looked more into their relationship or if management have addressed it at some call/update that I may have missed?

I've also noticed that the Chairman held 250k shares pre-dividend, but had a DRP on just 50k of it. DW/MR Clarke had a DRP on 2.8m out of 2.9m shares. There's been a real lack of buying by insiders since the IPO, and this combined with the lack of a full participation in DRP has made me stop and think for a bit, and was wondering if I could get other people's thoughts on what they think of that and how they justify an investment into MFD in even after this? According to the Chairman's LinkedIn, he's the chairman of 3 other companies so I don't see "he needs money" as a reason as to why he wouldn't have full DRP participation.

Apologies for the long post! Ideally looking to make an investment in this (if the financials look good and these queries end up ok) by late Jan, before the dividend announcement (assuming the liquidity is there!).