I mostly agree with your assessment but I also think that that a change is needed at the CFO level...
Wino115 wrote: SPCEO, I agree - let's focus here. An important point we must make with management is that they are likely just passing this by and thinking, "that crazy Board always b!tches when the stock price goes down...a rising price will quiet them down.". That is an incorrect assumption.
The fact the share price is up quite nicely over the last 6 months belies such a criticism. We are worried for the future primiarly because we are all quite positive about the company's scientific strategy and how the pipeline appears to be developing. We are happy to take the scientific risks and know them. What we are worried about is what was on display at the quarterly conference call and at other various important milestones --that what the company says and does falls on deaf ears and there does not appear to us to be a successful strategy at building the investor and sell side awareness at this point. This has been highly costsly to us all. Maybe there is a plan, but it is not apparent and was clearly set back by the analysts ignoring the last earnings call and not even being inquisitive about the cancer trial or where the NASH issues stand. This was a trend we all saw over the last 2 years as coverage faded and was substandard for a public company doing good things.
While it may appear a small issue, it's reflective of a much larger one that you and we are aware of and that is the inability of successful strategic initiatives to make there way in to any analysts models or the overall market valuation. On any number of comparable public companies we see a severe discount with THTX now that the pipeline is moving forward like many other companies at similar stages in similar therapeutic markets. You are chasing the exact same revenues they are in both oncology and liver therapy and are further along than many, yet the valuation differences are enormous by any objective standard. Unfortunately, we foresaw how not using the offering's ability to introduce the company via larger, well-known biotech oriented investment banking firms would have a detrimental effect on your ability to expand market knowledge of THTX. We know this message was relayed to you many, many times from professionals in this area. You chose to ignore it and it was costly to us and has consequences for you. The embarrassment caused by the solitude on the other end of the phone must have been palpable with your brand new colleague in the room, likely questioning if he made the right decision. It was quite a shame, but not a surprise seeing how the engagement with the market has evolved over the years. It's a deep hole to dig out of and that was clearly a large, lost opportunity in our view.
Because of that, as shareholders we want a Board that is far more representative of shareholder interests and can strengthen the obvious gaps in skill that exist within the Board. We do not want to see this again. We do not want the company sold on the cheap. We applaud the addition of your old Pfizer colleague as both his scientific background and regulatory experience seem a perfect fit in how the company is evolving. But there is still very little US experience on the Board and way too much Quebec/Montreal insider businessmen that, while a comfortable provincial image to you all, show us very little in the way of being shareholder oriented (given what little they all own compared to most biotechnology boards) nor bringing any particularly useful skill that's needed to fill the obvious gaps in Board experience and contacts.
Pardon the criticism here, but E&Y accountants are a dime a dozen and understanding the books does not appear to be an issue for THTX. You have both Dubuc and a treasurer to make sure of that. While I'm sure for you all it was a coup to get a Molson on the Board and I don't discount his skill as a business man, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the biotech world and it was clearly not a small company environment where one needs to be entrepreneurial, not a feckless conservative that is scared looking at market developments and makes a bad decision. Given the company seems to have few ties to any large investment banks outside of Canada (and even those ties are now minimally helpful), it behooves you to fill this gap with a professional that can bring this skill. Mr. Littlejohn clearly failed you and us in a big way.
If you want to be a large, successful global biotech firm, then look like a large successful global biotech firm. Their Boards are not filled with local business cronies, friends of the family and similar backgrounds all the way down to the same colleges. They are varied and each are responsbile to bring useful specific skills, expertise, experience and business views to you on our behalf and to question everything for us. Such a setup is rife for Groupthink and a limited world view on issues. Your Boards contacts are a huge part of that and simply by having such a provincial board, your contacts are by definition limited and it is no surprise you have been unablel to gain any traction in the bigger world of finance in NY, London, Frankfurt or HK despite your NASDAQ listing. Those are the facts that are undisputable at this point.
For that reason we would like to see Mr. Littlejohn, who didn't even have the confidence in you to buy more shares well below his average cost, join his colleague Mr. Pommier. Find a more useful member to provide actual global financial contacts for you than an E&Y accountant from Montreal. I daresay, you probabaly won't find any other major biotech with a Montreal accountant on it's Board. As for Mr. Molson, while I"m sure the skybox tickets are a nice perk for you all, really what does he bring except bragging rights for you all within the Montreal social community. I get it, letting it slip that you just got off a Board call with "Andy" will get all your pals wives in a titter, but honestly you can't waste Board seats on empty suits.
It is highly likely that none of those three will get any of our votes. Regardless if they aren't enought to get them off the Board as unrepresentative of a large shareholder base desire for high quality skilled and invested entrepreneurs, the tally will show an embarrissingly large number of shareholders do not support them as representative of what we want to see in the Board that represents us and is supposed to be 100% aligned to maximizing our value. The opportunity that you and other past executives have worked diligently to bring to fruition is obviously exciting to us shareholders or we wouldn't be here, and we do not want to see this fall on deaf ears or not realize fully the kind of value we wish to see over the next few years as it develops. We also do not wish it to be sold out from under us prior to realize it's full value. Provincial Boards full of pals tend to do that. It is a serious concern for us as no real shareholder oriented representative, like what a typical VC firm would be doing, is on our Board. We do not have that level of protection.
Time to act like a large global biotech -- find us more useful and skill-enhancing Board members to place on our Board who know what the value of your molecules can be in the global pharma world.