Wino115 wrote: Here's a thought. At a minimum, given the size of this voting block, it should be brought to their attention members will likely be voted out, but with the request that the Chairwomen, who represents us and we have voted in to that position annaully, meet with this group of shareholders so a large block understands a few things before we vote and the kind of Board member skills and backgrounds we would prefer to have represent us and not the Montreal social club they have built over the years to the detriment of long-term shareholder value creation at this point. She ought to hear from her electors more than once a year, so it should be open to anyone on this group as a conference call and we can all submit questions/concerns that can be grouped into a few key issues for her to address and a few can have open mikes to get a dialogue going. We would want to hear immediate solutions to these issues and new Board members up for vote or a committment for new members in 6 months via a search firm with the criteria we express and not their club membership books. If she refuses, they risk seeing votes go the wrong way, and that is telling in and of itself. If they keep putting up these type of members, we'll keep voting them down. They need to also increase their ownership massively to ALL align themselves and top management with shareholders.
It is pretty clear there's many Board members that, as SPCEO says, may have been appropriate for past restructuring strategies and we owe a debt of gratitude, but are not really bringing the saavy, entrepreneurial skills needed to deal with markets, bankers, investors and the pace and organization a "start-up" clinical trial biotech needs in this competitive and massvely fragmented market where all their stellar developments have fallen on deaf ears. The Board STILL lacks those skills with the members they've put up to us. Other than the new addition of Arena, this may be a WEAKER Board than what it had 3-4 years ago. There are outside firms that if you describe what you want, they will go find you candidates that fit that bill. I would love an ex Biotech VC guy who's built companies, taken them public and attracted well known investors to his company (and had a large personal stake!) on that Board to bring that sense of urgency and value-creation to the Board.
We still don't know if all they were able to do was get outmaneuvered by the one investor who's declared (Soleus) or by 2 or 3 more. If by just the one, then they were clearly fleeced like complete rookies and need to take responsibility for the long-term failure to build capital market presence and to get horrible analysis from Board members who were spooked by a few hillbillies roaming around Washington. I don't know of any other company that gave away such value at that time, for that reason. I fully understand they had to raise money because they faced approving a growing budget, with lots of new hires, and not enough cash to pay for it. But to do it with the banks they did was a failure, to include any warrants was a failure, and I do believe they could have attracted new banks into the fold and done it at a slightly better price, or at least negotiated it better with the lead instiutional buyers by arguning the future value proposition. They were more worried with just getting money in than with what it cost "them", because "them" is US and not them given what little they own. We agree a deal had to be done, just not one that bad. And if that was your only choice, then that cost is due to the years of negligence with a sustainable capital market strategy that reached beyond Bay Street and the clubs of Montreal. That is the sole purview of this provincial Montreal boys club Board --they don't really have insights and contacts much beyond the Montreal City Limits.
Furthermore, they knew they could talk with one of their major shareholders, SPCEO, and get an investors view on potentialities, risks, are thinking this through correctly, can you introduce us to bankers, etc... But they didn't even avail themselves of his experience and skills. The club met and felt the pressure of the hoards scaling the walls to their manicured gardens in Westmount and buckled rather than got creative and pushed for their shareholders more. Maybe we don't know the whole story, but then tell us the whole story so we understand it. I would be the whole story will show how the Board's limited skills did not help the situation.
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.