My first post on AU8 - but I've been watching the meteoric rise...

My first post on AU8 - but I've been watching the meteoric rise of this company for some time.

My concern is with the decision of Prenzler Group to withdraw from the underwriting agreement simply because the trading price of the stock has fallen.

An underwriting agreement is a legal document & the underwriter was to be paid a fee of 4% for TAKING RISK that it would be left holding stock.

This fully negotiated document (summarised at section 9.5 of the Prospectus) gave the underwriter the right to pull out for all sorts of reasons - including a market out clause in the event that the broader ASX market fell by 10% during the underwriting period.

Nowhere is it disclosed that the underwriter has the right to walk simply because the AU8 share price fell to a level that they were not happy with. If Prenzler wanted the right to walk for this reason alone then they should have negotiated it and included it in the terms of the contract. Then shareholders would have known that this was a Clayton's Underwriting Agreement.

It's not good enough for the Board to let the underwriter off the hook simply because the share price of a frothy stock has come off a bit, thereby imposing additional dilution onto shareholders as funds are instead being raised at a lower price. This raises a number of issues - who is Prenzler? Was Prenzler ever in a position to write out a big cheque if demand for the stock fell short? Have any shareholders suffered a loss because they relied on the underwriting agreement being honoured on its terms?

In short - an underwriter is paid a fee for taking risk. They aren't actually taking any risk if they are allowed to walk away simply because they get cold feet when the share price comes off a bit.