RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:NASH market and competitionI am not sure exctly what weight you are talking about - the ability to influence the company or to buy the stock and push it higher. Either way, I am actually quite skinny, so not much weight to throw around. On the stock front, we are a small firm with an already large holding in TH. Because of the value that always seems to be there in this stock (it is very rare that it gets caught up in a speculative excess which would provide a nice, easily determinable sensible exit point) I have ended up holding it for a very long time. As a result of our large holding, I got to know management pretty well but that really only means I get to chat with them more than most. I can try to influence them but that does not meet with a ton of success in most cases and probably for good reasons. You have to remember, they know everything about the company and its actual prospects and we know only in part. So, I am sure there have been many times when I may have been suggesting this or that and they were saying to themselves, "he has no idea of what the real situation is here". On this board we have sifted out more information than any other board I have ever seen and you all deserve a ton of credit for that. You all are great sleuths! I still remember the CFO getting ticked off that one of you dug out the name Trogarzo from some government trademark documents well before the company was ready to announce it.
The bottom line is public company shareholders have very little influence over the operations of a public company and the process of exerting whatever little influence we have is arduous. In the end, the biggest leverage we have is the ability to vote on the board membership. Its not much unless you want to get into a big fight and put up your own nominees for board membership, which entails a lot of hassles. So, unless you want to set yourself up as a hostile shareholder that is seeking to overthrow the board and put your own people on it, which would be a very time consuming and costly exercise, the best you can do is vent your frustration by voting against one or more of the current board.
Public companies know this and act accordingly. The barriers to making a signifnicant change are very high and the protections afforded a public company board and management are hard to overcome. They can pretty much do as they see fit knowing that it would only be under the most unusal of circumstances that they would run the risk of a shareholder revolt.
TH's case is certainly a unique one. Management and the board have admittedly done a pretty spectacular job of reinventing the company in short order following the unfortunate collapse in expectations for Trogarzo. And they did so on the cheap, without massively diluting legacy shareholders which is what normally happens in such situations. They deserve a ton of credit for that. But, despite this unusual success, the legacy shareholders have not benefitted, even with the backdrop of a market that was looking very favorably on all kinds of nonsensical businesses. So, while we want to cheer the management and board (past and present I might add) for what they pulled off, instead we are distressed by the stocks prices and therefore our lack of participation in the great work that was pulled off. And, then to cap off that frustration, they inexplciably did the worst possible offering they could have done, thereby undermining to an unfortunate degree, at least for legacy shareholders, the great work they had already accomplished.
So, each of you will need to consider that whole sequence of events when it comes time to vote. Perhaps some shareholder will decide to get hostile and take on the task of replacing the board. I doubt it, however, given the costs and the fact that this board has done a lot of very good things for shareholders. Still, there may be someone who sees the failure to translate that into success for the stock price as justification to make such a move. I could certainly understand such a reaction but would be torn about whether to support it. When the proxy comes out and we see how management and the board have benefitted while we have not, then perhaps I will be less torn, but I still do not expect anyone to turn hostile and seek to replace the board.
Also, in order to influence the company I would need to be speaking with them. As I remain stuck on level four, or something like that, of the stages of grief over the OO, I have not spoken to the company since that ill-fated night in early January when the news of the offering came out. Maybe I will get unstuck at some point, but for now, it would be difficult to have a productive conversation with management. You have to have a degree of trust for that and I don't have that at the moment, or at least I don't have it with some members of management.
It would be nice to see the company actively seeking to make changes so that TH's stock price might be viewed by investors in a way that it seems to deserve. You can't change the debacle of the OO but there is no reason not to make the best of a good situation. As best I can tell, we are not seeing any significant changes yet to how they engage with investors that might indicate the company has recognized the problem and is addressing it as fast as they can.
Bucknelly21 wrote: Rusty you clearly have some weight that can be thrown around... at what point do you start to do that, who the heck would be selling right before the aacr