RE:I spoke with LaFond this morningHe noted he got burned financially in the past exercising previous options and paying the taxes out of his pocket, so once burned twice shy That statement is not supported by his filings on Sedi ever since he becamean insider.....Unless he meant with an other public company but nothing shows up on Sedi....Did he lie to you? I hope not
SPCEO1 wrote: Our new head of IR kindly put together a quick call with Jocelyn, which was appreciated given the negative impact of this news.
Jocelyn indicated these options are part of their compensation package and he was just selling them to add to his compensation and because the expration data is not far off. He greatly regrets not exercising them when the stock hit its high in 2018 (I told him we can all relate to that, unfortunately). When asked about the timing in light of the potential for additional good phase 1b cancer news coming before the 12/20/22 expiration of these very low cost options, he really did not address that. He noted the trading volume is low so maybe he did not want to be in a position where he exercised them on the last day and then sold into a low volume market? But there are ways to handle that.
Obviously, these are very low cost shares and the 53% tax hit is huge. So, the most bullish response is an executive excercises low cost options, pays his huge taxes out of his pocket and holds onto all of the shares. The next best option for investors like us is to see him only sell the amount of shares needed to cover the tax hit. The worst option is to see all the exercised shares be sold, which is what we have in this case. Offsetting thsi clear negative is Jocelyn has not sold off his 18,000 shares he currently owns outright (not option exposure). He noted he got burned financially in the past exercising previous options and paying the taxes out of his pocket, so once burned twice shy?
So, there is no way around the fact that this does not look great. Only Jocelyn and Christian still own these very low cost options given out many years ago when the company was hanging on by a thread. Jocelyn has 105,000 left and Christian still has 125,000 left. My impression is we will see more filings from Jocelyn in the days to come and we obviously will see all of these options exercised sometime between now and 12/20/22. So, all eyes are now on Christian - if he exercises and sells before any new cancer development, that will be an even worse look than this. If he exercises, pays the taxes out of his own pocket and holds the shares, that would be a very bullish look.
Right now, however, we have the first insider sale in several years coming right after good news on cancer and no insider buying. It is not a good look. Christian - we await your next move. Paul, Philippe, the board - the lack of buying is now deafening. THTX's main problem with investors is the lack credibility and unless there is some insider buying soon, Elif's job just got even harder to rebuild that lost credibility.