Abra Mining postpones annual stockholders' meeting
Abra Mining [AR suspended] gave notice that its annual stockholders’ meeting, originally scheduled for August 9, would be postponed due to a lack of completed financial statements “and other supporting documents”.
The board did not provide any information on what is causing the delay in the preparation of the financial statements, though it’s probably not unrelated to the on-going fiasco of AR’s four-month (and counting) suspension that it received for the “lodgment and trading of unissued and unlisted shares” back at the beginning of March.
The AR board also declined to provide guidance as to when the financial statements are expected to be in order, nor as to when the rescheduled shareholders’ meeting might be held.
MB BOTTOM-LINE
I’m not an AR investor, but this situation makes me angry. Every bit of news that I consume on this issue is like listening to someone chew ice cubes with an open mouth. It’s like, it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it just does and I can’t help myself.
In isolation, AR’s move to postpone the shareholders’ meeting is a nothingburger: companies do this all the time, and for a wide variety of reasons. But added to the sea of uncertainty surrounding this stock, and this little nothingburger of a delay is like CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH. When AR shot to fame as the hottest piece of garbage available during those sweaty Basura Days back in Q1, the PSE and brokers were proud to look at the retail investors piling into the market and clap each other on the back as the commissions from trades piled up. When the basura party inevitably ended, and the most-traded stock on the PSE was suspended for selling unlisted shares during the chaos of the party, the PSE wanted to figure out a way to keep all of this “retail” interest that had just suddenly appeared and been so fun (profitable) for the exchange and brokers.
The exchange wondered aloud if perhaps educational outreach would help re-energize the retail investors that had so suddenly bloomed in Q1 but have since disappeared. That’s great. But what about the 145,698,684,200 shares of AR that are owned by the public, that have just been sitting in suspension for months? That’s over P670 million of the public’s money. Make no mistake, it’s not worth that anymore, but it’s not like AR is just some obscure little stock, either. It was the most traded stock in Q1. It’s widely held. I’d be willing to bet that a huge chunk of those 145 billion shares belong to hundreds of thousands of retail investors.
Maybe retail is just interested in casino-like bets on stock market oddities like AR, and if that’s the case, “education” would actually turn a good chunk of those people away. It’s one thing to put your chips in and bust, or get beat by the dealer “fair and square”, but it’s another thing entirely to put your chips in and just have the dealer be like “oops, looks like this deck was rigged... your bet is frozen. You can’t take the chips back, we aren’t going to tell you what’s happening, but... uh, yeah. Maybe tell your friends to come and play, too, won’t you? This sure was a lot of fun!”
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