Here are my thoughts. STT and his alter aliases need not reply. All other board members please share your thoughts. If you feel uncomfortable doing it in a public space, feel free to send a message to my inbox.
Please forgive any grammar, syntax and spelling mistakes and try to see past them to the issues and points raised.
I tried to be as objective as I could. Here are my 2 cents:
For starters, I doubt anyone came out of the company's investor conference feeling relieved or excited. There was a generally negative overtone from beginning to end. It felt forced almost as if they had to explain to the villagers why this is how things have to be. It's the type of patronizing typical of management towards third world communities in the mining space.
All the disagreement boils down to the share price and a general loss of investor confidence in certain of management and their respective divisions.
If I were to venture and take a guess on where most concerned investors stood, I'd say no one raised an issue with Walkers handling of the TIGRIS trial (despite delays) or any of DIALCO approval progress. Most of the frustration was directed towards the capital markets and sales strategy.
Understandably so, as the company has hardly any revenues and the share price performance is sub par. This isn't an acute problem... it's a 20 year chronic problem. Personally I don't blame Seto for this, yet, because he's just getting his feet wet at spectral and has been left with what I consider entrenched and comfortable with the status quo management, interesting, to say the least, corporate culture, and a total dumpster fire of a relationship with retail investors. Good on him for trying to get more institutons involved.
The reason I saw the conference call as unsuccessful is that it was littered with forward-looking statements, justifications and hostility from both sides. It was essentially an attempt to treat the symptoms rather than cure the cause of the issues.
For the purpose of clarity, the symptoms leading to this conference was the share price declining and increasing investor concerns, some unfounded and some legitimate, in overwhelming numbers nonetheless... the treatment proposed was to answer all the questions (even the stupid, and hostile ones) with oftentimes condescending hostile answers.
Addressing the cause, being managements handling of various aspects of the business, and delivering the cure would have meant action would have been taken by outlining and already delivering on improvement in those areas.
We didn't hear any radically different ideas with respect to a comprehensive sales strategy or IR strategy.
Hitting approvals is the clinical sides job and they've been doing it. But no one hears it. Why isn't there any PR being done around that. I don't think it's an accomplishment of IRs that the company has expanded the number of retail investors by 200 from last year and 11 institutional and family offices. Neither is saying we're talking to more instituional investors in the US... it's laughable. What else are you supposed to be doing with the time you're being paid to do your job? I would attribute that success to whomever orchestrated the Baxter deal and advanced the trials. Yet, this managed to barely reach an audience. Therein lies the failure. How are you going to deliver these types of events to investors eyes and ears more effectively in the future is the question that no one has been able to answer.
Who's putting in the hours?
What are the targets?
Will there be mass distribution medium used?
What is the budget?
20 years later, no one get it, hence the share price.
More of, as I see it, we're doing the trials... god will come down to deal with the share price. Yeah, sure, share price might increase by the very nature of the announcement but is that passivity in delivering the news maximizing shareholder value? Which is pretty much what 9/10 investors asked.
It's going to take a lot of "promises made, promises kept" to mend the relationship the company has with its 3000+ retail investors.
Lets call it like it is:
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The good:
Clinical side is making advancements
Hit a home run on Baxter partnership
Company has no immediate cash concerns
Working towards audit requirements for US listing
the bad:
The share price is in the gutter (Relative to comparables)
DIALCO sales are worse than bad
Revenues in general are laughable
Company has poor track record of meeting it's own deadlines
Management is being paid well for this
5M raise coming in H1 2021
the ugly:
Relationship with retail investors is abysmal
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Now you have every Tom, D1ck and Harry, including myself, telling management how to improve things. This is a loss of investor confidence in management by its very definition.
If investors think the management can do it better, they shut the heck up. You don't see anyone on the board, or any board for that matter, talking about how Elon Musk should promote Tesla or where Warren Buffet should invest (extreme but well known examples for the purpose of emphasis... many smaller management teams and companies have happy investors).
At the very least, I don't feel more confident about my investment and management didn't seem happy about the combative line and nature of questioning from mostly retail shareholders.
It was productive in the sense that we got to hear some new information about their plans and some already stated goals received needed illumination.
It was also disappointing in many ways since investors are clearly upset about countless issues including, but not limited to, relentlessly shifting timelines, poor sales numbers for DIALCO products, lack of sizable investment in IR/PR for the capital markets side, lack of clearly defined sales strategy (including PR), lack of US listing, management handling of investor input amongst others (over 100 questions asked before running out of time). Management also continues to be evasive and defensive in some areas.
Here's an idea.... sell some devices, aside from the trials and the failure in PR/IR that's the other half of the business.
side note: don't speak to us like we're children, Guadagni. Not all of us are taping drywall. Assume you're speaking to the most educated person you know when dealing with investors. There could be institutional and high net worth investors listening. They see right through that balogney about market size. Many who I know, don't like to be patronized, don't speak or complain and they have better things to do than argue with management. They simply walk out and park their money elsewhere. The company is way beyond management constantly talking about potential market size, no one cares. As it pertains to current investors the only things that matter in this stage of the company's lifecycle is:
Which approvals do you have?
Which ones are pending?
What are your milestones and when are their targeted dates for completion?
What is your revenue and how is it going to grow to make you profitable?
... credibility is assessed by achieving said milestones on time and on budget.
If you need proof look at your share price. Still don't believe me? Write 5000000 billion dollar market size in your next press release and see if it moves the needle Monday morning. We all know there's a market, we just don't see you selling in it.
If you're wondering why 1 sole analyst covers the story (thanks to Chris, otherwise there would be 0) I would opine that, aside from the low market cap and volume (which is a product of poor IR/PR), it is because no one can rely on the accuracy of managements statements.
Causing a vicious cycle... very little money spent on attracting investors, get analyst coverage, raise very little money at low prices and the cycle continues.
Personally I haven't seen very many deadlines met on time at Spectral during my time here and if I were an analyst I'd have a hard time pitching the story to my followers. You'd think that with the thousands of listed companies out there an analyst would put his name behind one that at the very least has reliable timing. You're either so loud (volume/price/market cap) that no analyst can ignore you or you're that hidden gem that is squeaky clean and shows lots of promise that someone's willing to take a chance on.
I've had the privilidge of speaking to some exceptional management teams and even at times that the company had failed I've never felt slighted or unhappy about my investment with them. In all instances they had treated investors as their partners in a business they were building together. Often positivity stemmed from their enthusiasm for the industry and their level of transparency, the time they took to respectfully take in investors criticisms, and their tireless effort to hit deadlines and diligently work towards solutions. If an issue was raised frequently enough by investors it would be thoroughly addressed and at times even against managements own 'better' judgement. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
I don't feel that warmth with this team... maybe a little from Walker.