In the Detail
The investor desk

Positions

One ASX-listed company at a time, examined the way an activist short seller would examine it: the claim the market is buying, the number that has to be true for it to hold, and the public record that says otherwise.

Every position states the claim it tests, the independent public fact that bounds it, the arithmetic between them, and the strongest honest explanations that would prove it wrong. Each one ends with the field work that would settle the question, because a desk analysis is a hypothesis.

Research, not financial product advice. No position is held in any security discussed, and no recommendation or price target is made.

Aroa Biosurgery Limited · ASX:ARX

Aroa Reaffirmed Its FY27 Guidance Eight Days After Its Largest Customer Told the SEC There Is Substantial Doubt It Can Continue as a Going Concern

Forty-two per cent of Aroa Biosurgery's revenue flows through one customer: TELA Bio, the NASDAQ-listed distributor of its OviTex surgical grafts. On 11 August 2026 TELA's quarterly filing said there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern, that a loan-covenant breach is probable within twelve months, and that it could not repay the loan if it were called. Aroa's balance sheet carries a NZ$21.4m unbilled accrual — its share of future sales of stock TELA holds but has not yet sold — an asset the accounts state needed no impairment provision, citing "the financial position of the counterparty", in accounts signed 77 days before that filing. On 19 August, eight days after the filing, Aroa's AGM materials reaffirmed FY27 guidance built on the assumption that sales to TELA stay flat. Neither lodged AGM document mentions the counterparty's condition. Across the seven sessions from its last close before the filing — a window that also priced its second-quarter miss and withdrawn guidance — TELA's shares fell 30%; Aroa's fell 5%. Whether any of this required an Aroa announcement, and when the asset should next be re-assessed, are judgments for the company and its advisers; this paper records what the public documents say and the dates they say it, and alleges no breach by anyone.

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· Conviction: building
Imricor Medical Systems, Inc. · ASX:IMR

Imricor's SEC Registration Statement Targets FDA Approval in 2026. Reaching That Date Would Now Take a Review Faster Than Any of the 141 Cardiovascular Approvals on Record.

Imricor's registration statement with the US SEC — its most recent full business description on the public record — says the company is "targeting receipt of FDA approval" for its ablation devices in 2026. The sentence dates from March 2026 and has been carried forward unchanged since; no filing restates, amends or replaces it, and a Form 10 is not brought current after it becomes effective. The final module of the application cannot be filed until a trial that was still enrolling on 10 August finishes and its data are analysed. FDA's own record for the class: the fastest cardiovascular device approval since 2015 took 128 days, the median 304 — and on the most company-favourable timeline the desk can construct from the company's own August statements, at most 94 days of 2026 would remain, a window zero of the 141 approvals on record would have fit. The company's newest materials attach no year to approval: their forward heading spans "2H 2026 & into 2027", and the revenue inflection they describe is attributed to a different, already-cleared product line.

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· Conviction: exploratory
Lindian Resources Limited · ASX:LIN

The Kazakh Plant Lindian Is Buying Files Its Rare-Earths Line at 600 Tonnes of Oxide a Year. Its Feed Plan Delivers 6,875.

Lindian told the ASX in March that the SARECO rare-earths plant in Stepnogorsk is "fully operational" with "permits, logistics, and supply chains established", raised A$100m a month later with the plant's "operational readiness" among the stated uses of proceeds, and on 10 August signed a definitive agreement lifting its interest from a planned 51% to 100% — for up to US$20m in cash, US$5m of which the company attributes to additional warehouses, buildings and land found in due diligence, plus up to US$22m in Lindian scrip for the 49% its in-country partner would otherwise have held and funded. The plant operator's most recent application to Kazakhstan's environmental regulator — published in January 2025 — states the rare-earths line's production capacity as about 600 tonnes of TREO a year, on a feedstock one-tenth the grade of the Kangankunde concentrate Lindian plans to ship it. The company's stated feed plan carries roughly ten to eleven times that figure — or about six times, if the standing 6,000-tonne Iluka offtake is netted from it. Neither acquisition announcement states any capacity for the plant, and nothing on the regulator's public-hearings register contemplates the difference.

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· Conviction: exploratory
Propel Funeral Partners Limited · ASX:PFP

Propel Funeral Partners Bought All of Its Growth While Australia's Death Count Rose 13%

Propel is priced as a defensive compounder riding an ageing population, and its own investor deck puts Australian death volumes on a 2.9% annual climb from 2026. Deaths did rise: 13.1% in the seven years to FY25, on the Bureau of Statistics' count. Over the same seven years, volumes at the funeral homes Propel already owned fell 5.4%. In each of the eight reporting periods since it listed, comparable volumes have grown more slowly than the national death count — and in the latest half deaths rose 3.2% while comparable volumes did not move at all. Headline volumes still doubled, on $356m of acquisitions.

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· Conviction: building
Objective Corporation Limited · ASX:OCL

Objective Corporation Moved a Third of Its Profit Onto the Balance Sheet

Two years ago Objective Corporation expensed everything it spent developing software and earned $22.0m before tax. It then began capitalising about half of that spend — an asset now worth $25.5m that it has never written down — and reported pre-tax profit of $41.4m. Reverse the choice, the way its listed peer Gentrack still does, and FY25 pre-tax profit falls to $28.7m. After a 64% share-price fall, the case for buying the dip rests on the larger number.

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· Conviction: building
4DMedical Limited · ASX:4DX

4DMedical Doubled Its Scan Count and Its Revenue Went Backwards

A 1,548% re-rating in twelve months, built on scan volume, FDA clearance and marquee US hospital names. Over the same twelve months 4DMedical's revenue fell 0.8%. Scans doubled while revenue per scan halved and the United States line went backwards. The company's own annual report says part of that volume is non-revenue generating, and when ASX asked about the agreements behind the re-rating, the answer was that the revenue from them is immaterial.

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· Conviction: building