RE:RE:RE:I'm retired but not brain deadAs promised,
I wrote to Pierre via Fred yesterday morning and both replied hours later, Saturday evening!!
From Fred, a few minutes ago.
Pierre and I are trying to respond as quickly as possible to all our shareholders but as you can easily imagine, we are seriously outnumbered. Feel free to post my response if you think it will somehow help others who have not written to us yet.
You can also pass the message along that we will try to get to all as quickly as we can.
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Both Pierre and Fred’s essentially had the same message, I am posting only Fred's
Here is Fred’s reply from yesterday;
As you can see Aldo, I have copied Pierre on this email. However, please allow me some comments as well first. True that much was promised over the years but you’ll agree that a whole lot was delivered as well. Just look at the clinical results we have generated. Find me one bad result in any of them? How many other pharma company can say the same.
PLI went from a $50M market cap to a billion $ company. Not too shabby either. We are now top 3 or 4 market cap in healthcare in the country. We must be doing something right. I know, Valeant and Concordia have gone down dramatically but we are probably the only true pharma company in the country with a pipeline worthy of a very large pharma.
We have developed a proprietary protein purification platform that is world class and will in the future crank out one new drug almost on a yearly basis if necessary. Not too bad either you’ll admit
I won’t even mention the small molecules pipeline we have. If proven right, we may end up having the drug to deal with fibrosis in general, a multi-multibillion $ and growing market that is dealing with the biggest and fastest growing medical concerns.
I understand and share the frustration regarding the share price, we all do, we are all large shareholders ourselves. Here is the rationale behind this US financing:
Cantor is a solid and well respected US investment bank that is well connected with the US investment community. This is required now since the Canadian institutional scene is not exactly amicable to the healthcare sector at the moment.
Because the prospectus is filed on the TMX, Cantor Canada had to be the underwriter.... but this deal is all about the USA and Cantor USA and US institutional investors.
This deal is predominantly US (>85% US) and >95% institutional... and we know where the stock is going to as per our objectives (long only, no shorts).
This process started as a discrete PIPE and Cantor US leading the process. It morphed in the last minutes into a bought deal and unfortunately the headlines or the PR could not tell the entire story. We will have the opportunity to communicate the fact that this issue is all placed in the hands of US institutions typically Long Only (rare breed) and are jumping on the PLI train as they too believe it is destined to great success and value.
With this, we are and have
• Secure investment from US based Institutional investors – focused on fundamentals – long only
• (something that was telegraphed during the AGM)
• Avoid feeding any stock to funds shorting the stock
• Secure our financial position while negotiating other deals and improving the effect of significant catalysts on the share price
• Prepare our runway to if and when we go for Nasdaq with solid funds supporting their position and the stock
I would say this by in large was achieved. The process got very convoluted at the end to avoid discounts related to PIPEs in the US and ended up as a bought deal using Cantor Canada for a prospectus to clear the shares. But we control where the shares are allocated and this is an institutional US deal. Very different than the last one which ended up being Canada only and 65% retail.
Between cash on hand, China JV cash contribution in 2017 (~$23 M), this financing, the focus should be on other things than the balance sheet…
Onward and upward from here Aldo…
Best regards,
Fred