At the request of CAMERON GROOME, MBX Ceo From: Cameron Groome <cameron.groome@microbix.com>
Sent: December 20, 2024 12:44 PM
Cc: Deborah Honig <deborah@adcap.ca>; Jim Currie <jim.currie@microbix.com>
Subject: RE: MICROBIX BIOSYSTEMS INC.
Dear
Thank you for your e-mail suggestion that Microbix consider putting itself up for sale or become privatized. We also acknowledge that you have posted the text of your e-mail to “Stockhouse” and likewise expect that you will publish this reply in its entirety.
It is my pleasure to address each of your points:
- Founded in 1984 by the late William (Bill) Gastle), MICROBIX has never been able as a public company, despite overall positive financial trends to reward its shareholders with an adequate share price.
Our management and board acknowledge the long history of our company and its share price performance during that history. In fact, we explicitly discuss it our Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) disclosures and I have spoken about it in multiple CEO Shareholder Letters and on numerous Investor Webinars.
In my opinion, it is only in the past several years that Microbix has been optimally focused and thereby been creating clearly apparent, real, and lasting value. Sadly, we have been making such business progress through a pandemic and then in an environment where there has been a reduced appetite for small cap stocks, so our share price has not risen to the sort of level we would all like to see.
As CEO, it is not my place to provide investors advice about the value of Microbix shares nor to define what constitutes an adequate share price. Within my role however, we are committed to building sales, margins, earnings, cashflow, and to buying back stock.
- As Q4/2024 is being released today, warranting a definite market value appreciation, this is just not taking place.
Thank you for remarking that you believe our Q4/2024 results warrant definite market value appreciation. I note that Microbix shares have risen 10% since issuing these latest results and over 30% since the start of December. I too hope that Microbix shares will rise further as investors digest our results and related disclosures. We will continue to both build value and communicate about what we are doing.
- TD SECURITIES, namely, is stifling the share momentum on the upwards by selling at $0.38, while there is no whatsoever reason for the share price not to rise above $0.40 in light of the latest company good news.
Thank you for highlighting that TD Securities was an active buyer and seller over the course of 19 December. We will make a point of contacting their trading desk to reiterate that the Microbix NCIB (share buyback program) is an active buyer of blocks of shares. That being said, we expect that the TD trading desk will continue to prefer to get a commission on both sides of their trades, as they evidently had buyers as well as sellers. To us, this seems a clearer motivation than a desire to stifle upward momentum.
- You must, Mr. Groome, become conscious that management efforts to create shareholder's value is simply not happening and given that abnormal situation, a strategic review of the company is required.
Our management team and board are already keenly conscious of the imperative to create shareholder value. In fact, we have recently completed a multi-day strategic off-site meeting (in Mississauga) attended by our senior management team and full board on this very topic. In every way we can influence, we are creating real and lasting shareholder value, as exemplified by our record revenues and earnings across fiscal 2024.
I therefore conclude that you are dissatisfied with Microbix’s share price, which is not something that we control. I likewise believe that “strategic review” is a euphemism for “auction ASAP” given that expressed dissatisfaction. Please correct me if I am wrong on either interpretation.
Our management and board have discussed the merits of an immediate sale and believe that unless and until a premium sufficient to reflect where the company will be in two to three years is received now, it remains better to continue building our increasingly successful business. To us, a premium of a sufficient magnitude to fully reward shareholders appears unlikely right now. In contrast, continuing our progress will enable current shareholders to realize the benefits of our targeted sales growth and margin expansion more fully, along with getting the rapidly approaching value from the re-approval of Kinlytic. We are therefore not inclined to run an auction process for Microbix at this time and believe that a substantial majority of shareholders support our analyses and conclusions.
- I would like to obtain your feedback on my current e-mail.
I hope that these detailed and point-by-points replies clarify our views and reasoning.
Thank you for being a shareholder and taking the time to write. Do let me know if you have further concerns.
Sincerely,
Cameron Groome
President & CEO
Microbix Biosystems Inc.