RE:RE:RE:RE:Levesque, Svoronos, Dubuc, Gibson - You should Read up!Wino/realitychek4u/Scarlet,
I think you have very articulately described our legitimate concerns and the reality of the current situation, thank you……looking forward for me the concern is that do these BOD’s have the right skill sets to take Thera to the next level and
more importunately, as realitycheck4u said negotiate well for our future deals……I think we can all agree they have severely mishandled the whole IR issue and it has cost us all dearly with the “OO” so how can they not be held accountable for that?
My hope is that Dawn has the foresight and courage to make the appropriate board adjustments but so far, we are not seeing that with the exception of the new Pfizer candidate that was most likely a Paul initiative and not Dawn.
scarlet1967 wrote: “But they have also done a lot of good things that should not be ignored."
I have been holding this stock for almost a decade I am sure you, Palinc some others have been invested in this company longer, my question is what have we long term investors done wrong not to support the company's valuation? Did we not hold on to our large core position through thick and thin? Did we not somehow oddly try to come up with constructive suggestions? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round meaning an adaptive company surprises their investors by their creativity? Why all the “good things” they did haven't translated to a fair valuation and ROI for their long term loyal investors?
My next question is if this board was happy to sell 30 per cent of the company “the OO” when they were at the inflection point what would stop them to sell the whole company at a giveaway price?
Why would we think same people with the same mindset would do things differently going forward?
SPCEO1 wrote: Still listening to any and all who would like to guide my thinking. We have a bit of time to reach a conclusion, so we can consider this carefully. As you know, it is not easy to defend the board when it comes to the inability to get the share price to levels comparable with its peers. On that front, it has been an abject failure and as investors, that is obviously not where we want them to come up short. But they have also done a lot of good things that should not be ignored.
realitycheck4u wrote: Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah
Finally someone else is starting to see that our wonderful TH has joined the big leagues and it is very much high time to clean the Montreal Boys club slate clean. The next thing we need is to add a shareholder minded board member into our votes so the Board does not simply do a deal that feathers their nest AFTER they sell us - because they sure as heck do not own enough shares at this point in time to care about what the take out price is. It is easy for them to do a deal that compensates them once the shares are sold (many legal creative ways to do this) or what if they negotiate a deal with a high break fee. This chance cannot be allowed to happen.
Rusty, please understand it is not about upsetting the cart here, (or your hopeful friends at TH who you no longer talk to) but it is about protecting what is in the cart. Without a change, you risk a decade+ of faith (and locked in capital) in the hands of a group of people that do not have their interests aligned with your own or with mine or Wino or Scarlett or Fred or on and on >>>. We must help lead this. Doing nothing would be a catastrophe if you did nothing and things fell in the wrong direction. This is the time. Our Board must be modified considerably and we need to start it for them, because the Montreal Good Old Boys Club will never ever do this to each other even thought they sit around the table and know they need to change. It is too hard for them. I know how that club works and you can see it is a fact just by reading the Bios. I think adding Molson to the mix a change in our thoughts would be something to consider here. It would send a huge signal and it cannot hurt the stock price.
I am open to have my mind changed on who to withhold votes for - but something must be done.
I await your thoughts.
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.