Well I'll say it. In my opinion, yes Carnegie have clearly and intentionally misled shareholders over a considerable period of time. Absolutely yes. Is this supposed to be a scary thing to say?
* They withheld performance results of Ceto 5.
* Withholding those results meant the real reason Ceto 6 was delayed (by what will end up being 4 - 5 years) was not revealed to shareholders until 18 - 24 months after it should have been; that real reason being redesign of Ceto 6 based on the lack of performance of Ceto 5. Remember, Ceto 6 was always going to be fundamentally different to Ceto 5; this was redesign beyond those differences. In the meantime Carnegie told media and shareholders that things were happening, including at least two announcements of "long lead items" being ordered, their Ceto project manager telling UK media that multiple Ceto 6 pods would be in place there in 2018 etc, etc.
* Carnegie used funds that were raised from shareholders explicitly for Ceto 6 to instead purchase EMC, because they knew Ceto 6 was years off even if they didn't say so.
* EMC's true state was never revealed to shareholders until Carnegie tried to sell it.
* Carnegie raised funds from shareholders weeks before trying to sell EMC without telling shareholders at the time of the CR that they were planning to do that. Shareholders believed they were supporting ongoing operations and that there was a path to profitability, because this is what they were told.
* The actual terms of the sale of EMC (Carnegie paying TAG millions to take it) and share transfer from TAG was dodgy as hell.
* Repeated missed deadlines for Ceto 6, GIMG, Murchison, Northam. We are talking years, not months.
* Every announcement being peppered with overly-optimistic forward looking statements that amounted to nothing in the end.
* Carnegie calling Northam the "largest solar project under construction in Western Australia".
* Carnegie privately basing their ability to fund the Albany project on a federal government tax rebate, missing several funding paperwork deadlines with the WA government and not saying a word to shareholders or even the state government about it until the media caught wind.
* Carnegie IP value was massively inflated in financial reporting for years.
* Their CTO, now CEO, claims he doesn't know how Ceto 5, their most high profile project to date, performed. If that's true he should be fired for incompetence. If it's not true, he should he fired for lying at the very time Carnegie were supposed to be being "more transparent" with shareholders (in their own words).
Serious accusations? Probably. And that's why ASIC are/were investigating, as reported by the ABC. It was not possible for anyone outside of Carnegie's inner circle to make informed investment decisions based on their reporting to market, that's what it boils down to. The cynics among us escaped relatively painlessly, when our BS detectors exploded. But those with a less jaded view of their fellow man got burned, and it upsets me. This isn't a character flaw, it's a good thing, and to hell with those who'd break the rules to take advantage of it.
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