Please read in regard to Pinetree management A few posters have expressed their distaste for not only the drop in NAV and share price but also their disappointment in the new management team in general.
To begin with their first priority and the first necessary step is for management to maximize the value of the garbage they inherited from prior management as well as paying back over $7m in liabilities. I would highly stress that it isn’t the current management team that should be penalized for the declining NAV. Think about what happened. They took over a company that was inflating the value of their illiquid stocks and illiquid private company positions. New management comes in and does their research on what the assets are worth and finds out they are worth only fractions of what is on the balance sheet.
For example;
(i) As at December 31, 2016, included in total investments were securities of private companies with a fair value totaling $2,822 (cost of $28,399).
Why is everyone penalizing them for the investment mistakes of Sheldon Iwentash? Prior management invested in horrible companies and now those investments are showing their true colours (Paying $28m for companies worth $2.8m). Wait till current management has had the opportunity to clean up the balance (they have already paid back all the debt) and actually make investments based on their abilities and their vision before criticizing their performance.
For context; of all the great turnaround stories where new management was brought in to save a company, do you think they did it in less than a year? In the cases of; Ford, Ericsson, Yahoo, BlackBerry, Apple, JC Penney, Kodak, HP, do you think investors believed they would get the job done in less than a year?
Pinetree management have only been in charge starting April 29, 2016 and if you want to talk about having shareholders’ interests at heart read this footnote;
Salaries decreased by $587 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2015 primarily due to both, a reduction in the number of employees and current employees not currently drawing a salary or any other form of compensation.
Compare that to the prior CEO who paid himself $11.2 million in 2006, $21.4m in 2007 and $34.6m in 2010 and then resigned years later with the company in violation of its debt covenants.