A) do the new issue at $0.60 (assume no price change for this analysis) and then release no news because there is nothing new to release at this time.
B) with the stock at $0.60, POET releases its' inflection point news, which causes a stock run up, and then we get the new issue pricing.
C) Sell the new issue at a $0.60 new issue price... then once sold, release the inflection point news, and see the stock price move up
Assuming there is in fact major unreleased news ready to release, such as the performance stats of the optimized VCSEL, and assuming I was running POET, or running IR, or indeed running the US broker... in each case I would always pick option B. I have to believe Poet, IR and the US broker would all much rather have the stock price move up before they lock in a new issue price, so an inflection point announcement, pre-pricing, should be imminent.
Re option A - why would they gift the institutional buyers in the US with a 2 or 3 year low stock price while knowingly having no announcement prepared to follow the closing? That makes all their rushing inexplicably worthless. That means they would not be concerned about diluting the existing shareholders, when there is no need to, since they have $10 million in the bank. So it's not going to be a big rush to do a $0.60 new issue which is then followed by no news. This illogical scenario would be hard for IR to brag about orchestrating, and hard for the US broker to sell.
I would think excitement about the stock would logically be generated before the stock price is set, to encourage buying of the issue, and supplemental buying in the market. It makes all kinds of sense to time the new issue to happen right after a blockbuster news release.The US broker would want to sell the issue out to maximize their income, to generate a track record they can use to get other clients like POET in the future, and to look good to their institutional buyers whom they introduced to this world class asymmetric risk reward opportunity. Same thing for IR to impress POET by being the ones to have pointed out the US broker in the first place, and to bask in the brilliance of their advice and their contacts. And POET would want to dilute as little as possible by doing the new issue at a higher price than $0.60.
I don't see advising Poet to set a $0.60 issue price, and then release the news, as that would not be serving their client Poet well. Instead the only thing that strategy would do is benefit their institutional clients with an immediate profit, at the dilutive expense of Poet, which would be a big conflict.
