Stop being cheapskates on meeting costs
Q1. General process question. "With a healthy market cap of $393m today, why didn't we just use the Link/MUFG platform to run this whole virtual EGM rather than asking shareholders to juggle two separate platforms with Link for the online voting and Zoom for the online questions? How much did we save by bringing Zoom into the equation?"
Answer: I got this wrong as they also used Zoom for the online voting. Question wrangler Raj Chandra provided a written response: "We remain conscious of costs. Most platforms are $10,000 plus. Using Zoom is cost effective - at or near zero."
Placement only serial offender could have accepted more SPP applications
Q2. Resolution 1 question: "After doing a $22m placement at 27c in November 2024 and a $25m placement at 35c in August 2025, thank you for changing your practice and bolting on a share purchase plan for retail shareholders after the latest $40m placement at 55c. However, you proposed capping the SPP at $5m and then only accepted $10.3m in applications after $19.3 million came through the door. After raising $87m from big end of town investors across 3 deals, what made you think that $5m would satisfy your 2824 retail holders? How many shareholders participated in the SPP and how many different investors participated in the $40m placement being approved in resolution 1 today?"
Answer: The SPP outcome announcement had already disclosed a 22% participation rate which they repeated. Here's proof public company CEOs expect their dopey retail shareholders to not act rationally with an in the money SPP. Unico Silver CEO Todd Williams reckons 22% participation was “overwhelming” and “abnormal”. See video of his answer via Twitter, plus this video of the question being asked.
No idea who keeps leaking placement details to AFR Street Talk column
Q3. Resolution 1 question: "At the EGM held in August 2025, I asked who authorised the selective leaking of the details of the $22.5m placement in November 2024 to The AFR's Street Talk column before all investors were informed through an ASX announcement. The question was never read out. The same thing happened with this latest $40m placement which was first disclosed in The AFR's Street Talk column on Sunday, November 26 whilst all investors weren't officially informed through an ASX announcement until Tuesday, November 28. Who authorised this leaking of the placement we are approving today and why do you do it?"
Answer: question wrangler Raj Chandra commendably didn't censor this question and also offered up this written reply via Zoom: "By definition if is a leak then we would not know and hard to answer. Suffice to say it is not the company. Reading those columns it is always intriguing. Noting there was something in relation to Weebit this week." In terms of the public oral response, CEO Todd Williams kept it very short: "Simply, no one authorised the leaking of that information and I think we'll just leave it at that". It must have been one of the brokers, probably Canaccord, and it would have been helpful if the CEO had explained that they are not in control of information flows once an under-writing agreement has been struck. See video of exchange via Twitter.
Ticket clippers deserve 6% fee due to their "connectivity" to investors
Q4. Resolution 1 question: "The 6% fee paid to Canaccord for managing this latest $40 million placement seemed excessive. What is our history with Canaccord and did we run a competitive tender before settling on paying this large cash fee? Does the chair believe Canaccord really earnt or deserved such a large fee given they were only on risk for a couple of days and the pricing was set at a whopping 18.5% discount to the previous close? If you're happy to spend $2.4m like this, why won't you spend another 10k to hold a better EGM via the Link platform?"
Answer: Out-sourced company secretary Melanie Leydon said Zoom was 10-12k cheaper and was more "agile" but they'll consider the issue going forward. Regarding the capital raising broker fees, CEO Todd Williams claimed they focused on "scale, speed and fairness" but ultimately pointed to Canaccord's "connectivity" with offshore funds as the reason for paying such a large fee to "one of the best", who they have worked with for a number of years. No mention of any tender. See video of exchange via Twitter, plus these additional comments where director Peter Canterbury pointed out that Euroz and Argonaut shared in the 6% fee.
We're not doing any income splitting with the missus
Q5. Resolutions 2a and 2b question: "Could Peter Canterbury and Peter Holmes comment as to whether they are going to take these long term performance rights in their own name or nominate some other recipient as the wording allows for? I would prefer they not do any tax planning strategies and instead just take the grant directly in their own names, like it was a regular employee salary arrangement?"
Answer: Peter Canterbury and Peter Holmes both commendably explained that whatever vehicle took the grant would be 100% owned by them so there was, and these are my words, no “income splitting with the missus” going on. Peter Holmes suggested he was likely to take it directly in his own name whereas Peter Canterbury will probably use an investment vehicle in which he is the only director and beneficiary. See video of exchange via Twitter.
Summary of recent placement
December 17, 2025 Unico Silver (USL): The AFR's Street Talk column broke the news at 12.51pm on Sunday, November 16 about a $40m raise by "the $347m market cap silver explorer and developer, which has several projects in Argentina". Canaccord was selling the shares at 55c, a whopping 18.5% discount to the previous close and pocketed an excessive 6% cash fee. It went into a trading halt at 9.53pm on Friday, November 14 citing a pending capital raising with no details. The official announcement dropped at 9.29am on November 18 detailing a $40 million placement with a $5m SPP bolted on. The latest annual report says it has 2,824 shareholders so the theoretical maximum in SPP applications was $84.7m. The stock finished at 89.5c on January 5 giving it a market cap of $525m. After $19m poured in from 22% of the register, they lifted the $5m SPP cap to $10.3m, refunding around $9 million, without disclosing the specific scale back formula in the announcement, instead just pointing to the offer document. This included some woolly statements on pages 8 and 9 saying the company "may take into account a numbers of factors", including any 'gaming' by applicants, recent trading and the size of the holding on the closing date. It really should just be pro-rata based on size of holding on the record date, so have requested they provide more specifics.
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