I fully exited today IRL and in SM.

I liked where WSP was starting to head in recent months - (1) org restructure, rightsizing (2) better focus by exiting the US and focusing on Asia (3) technology stack remediation done (4) new AI products being rolled out etc.

But what tipped me over today was:

• The recent Capital Raise and the 11% dilution, the AGM approval for a further 10% placement capacity - more dilution could be on the way
• The AFR reports that Forager partially sold down its 11.2% stake, Spheria sold down its entire 7.6% stake, both to Soprano to give it its 15% stake (simplistically assumes Forage sold down 7.4% of its 11.2%, leaving it with 3.6%), Aust Super sold down 1.2% of its 7.1% stake last week at $0.30 - the funds are exiting
• The CFO said Jeromy watched his register carefully, but it seems like he was caught with his pants down this time with his big shareholders bailing out - will be challenging for him to fight this from his 9.5% stake at such short notice and what appears to be a determined takeover to take WSP private - I suspect he is already cooked
• ~6% changed hands on the market today, unlikely that Jeromy will have ready funds to have grabbed a decent share of that 6%, if any at all, and to raise funds in the coming days to protect his stake

My average cost was $0.71 as I bought in 60% of my holdings at $0.30 to average out. Realised a $8k loss, which, while not great, is not a biggie in the bigger picture, Couldn't see a rival bid up to $0.71 at this point to hold out for, so bit the bullet and got out.

I have been sitting on the WSP 1Q results and capital raise, working out whether to exit or stay the course. It was a bit of a relief to have my hand played with a realised loss that doesn't give me indigestion!

All the best to those who are still in.

Excellent rundown @jcmleng. I suspect most who have held for a fair while will have the same conundrum - I thought about buying at these beaten down prices several times over the past 18 months myself, but couldn't get myself to bite the bullet given the disappointing performance of both the business and the shares - it was still mighty risky even at its nadir.

Well done on overcoming any anchoring or other biases and averaging down after taking an objective view of where the company is at/likely to be heading. It is always darkest before dawn, but it looks like the "dawn" here is going to be cut off by Soprano swooping in unfortunately.

Agree that it looks cooked, much to the chagrin of a majority of the register, but that is on Jeromy and board for running the business in a manner that allowed an opportunistic bid like this.

I can also relate to the sense of relief you get from finally offloading/exiting a position that hasn't worked for you, especially one that you have agonised over for several months or years!

Interestingly, the market price went to the level of the takeover offer very quickly after the market opened yesterday, and has largely stayed slightly above that price for most of the trading since. There are big lines at 48c. I wonder if that's just Soprano accumulating more shares, or if there is something else afoot there from another party.