Careful column chromatography resulted in the isolation and characterization of major side-products including symmetrical biaryl 4a, isolated in ~10% yield (analogous with 4, Scheme 2), amide 6a, 8a pentacycle 7a, 18 and phenol 8a. Amides 5a and 6a are analogous to compounds 5 and 6 (Scheme 2) identified by Porée 8e and Catellani 8a respectively. Porée et al. showed that phenanthridinones 5 (where R' = benzyl, methyl) were formed in presence of certain base cations and solvents, 8d,e for which definitive conclusions could not be drawn. We examined the reaction of 1a using Porée's pre-catalyst PdCl2(PPh3)2 (5 mol%) with K2CO3 (3 equiv.) in dioxane at 105 °C, however 5a was only formed in a trace quantity (by HPLC) in our hands.