At the current price of 16 Singaporean cents, the stock is trading near 10 per cent of its 2013 high point, which was already well down on its ASX highs of more than $4.

So shareholders would have welcomed the news on Wednesday that the company was about to sign a deal to sell shale oil assets in South Australia for a "rumoured $100 million" to an unidentified buyer.

Keep in mind that this is equal to Linc's current market value.

Which is probably why no one should be surprised to hear that Linc's minders were scrambling within hours to say the story was  "factually incorrect in a number of respects".

But not totally.

On November 11, the company signed a confidential agreement with an Australian company that is now kicking the tyres of its South Australian shale gas assets.

"Commencement of formal negotiations is subject to satisfaction of due diligence," said Linc on Thursday after receiving a "please explain" letter from the Singapore Stock Exchange.

At least it draws attention away from the recent legal stoush with the Queensland government, which claimed Linc's underground coal gasification plant near Chinchilla had caused serious environmental contamination.

The case was before the courts just as Bond, Linc's largest shareholder and chairman, was selling the virtues of a $20 million revamp of his plaything, Dunk Island, which will reposition it as a luxury spa retreat.

"I don't want to think about how much I have spent on it," Bond told the Murdoch press recently.

Bond picked up the island for $7.5 million in 2011 after the resort was wiped out by Cyclone Yasi.

Which is a lot less than the $32.5 million in fines that Linc faces if it is unsuccessful defending itself against the environmental charges.

Rock group

Former Goldman Sachs heavyweight Alastair Walton was at Rockpool on Thursday boning up on his new career as Australia's consul-general in Houston, just days before he is due to fly out.

He was breaking bread with some mates who might have a tip, or two, on the new gig: Former PM John Howard, and his top two political staffers from back in the day – Canberra's comeback kid Arthur Sinodinos, and recently retired corporate shock jock Max Moore-Wilton.

Captain's call

Former All Blacks captain and Kathmandu chairman David Kirk has done his best to fend off a first strike against the retailer's remuneration report at a shareholder meeting to be held on Friday.

As CBD reported this week, Kathmandu is facing a rather embarrassing revolt by its major investor, Rod Duke's Briscoe Group, after it set an an artificially low earnings base to measure the performance of the new CEO's incentive package.

After much soul searching, Kirk and the rest of the board of the the adventure wear retailer decided to ratchet up the performance hurdles on the bonus of his CEO, Xavier Simonet, who must have been over the moon at the news.

Whatever the outcome on Friday, it has not been Kirk's best performance on the corporate paddock.

Bum steer

While all the attention was on the Chinese being knocked back by our Treasurer Scott "ScoMo'' Morrison over the purchase of the S. Kidman cattle station, foreigners were nibbling away at another juicy beef player.

Interests associated with British billionaire Joe Lewis announced that it has struck a "cash-settled equity swap" with an unnamed investment bank giving it exposure to 3 per cent of Australian Agricultural Company's issued stock.

This comes less than a month after the Bermuda-based billionaire, who owns the Tottenham Hotspur football team, increased his stake to 32 per cent.

Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au