I'm in two minds about this.
Firstly, VML was running desperately short of money and several weeks ago when they announced the share placement at 1 Australian cent, I wasn't even sure they would get money then. A lot has changed since then with the McDonalds Global announcement.
However, it seems odd that they couldn't put off the share placement by a few days when this contract announcement became imminent. It had already been delayed once (on Dec 23). It certainly rings alarm bells for me. 1 cps now appears that it might be cheap in which case they could've got away with selling half as many shares. This has been a capital transfer from current shareholders to the new shareholders (including the directors).
Maybe the directors were committed to share placement before the news of the McDonalds deal came to light. But it's not enough to do the right thing: they need to be seen to be doing the right thing.
This whole deal feels a little fishy. Directors enriching themselves at the expense of shareholders. The $2,174,166 invested is now worth almost $5 million. Pretty easy work if you can get it.