RE: TTHWUWT
That is, if the ONC share price is a reflection of disappointment over this opportunity cost, that disappointment would have been felt and reflected in ONC's share price more toward TTH's low than today.
before today, there was still the possibility that the tth investment was being held as originally intended and that onc could recover the value of their original investment - this sale represents not only the finality of the tth loss to onc & its shareholders, but management's indirect acknowledgement that they now have a better use for that asset - and that use ironically is apparently the original asset they found necessary to diversify from.
if they had kept those 1.9M shares and issued them today, they would have gotten more like $5M or 6M for them, not half of that. onc managment has gone "out of their way" and onc shareholders are paying the price for their misguided adventure.
sure, if everything goes well from here, this will be seen as a small "blip", if remembered at all, but we are still a long way from "there", and this bad decision reflects poorly on onc's judgement and leads to related questions like "what kind of partner deal will they do, if tth is any basis?"
Re your comment that at the time TTH needed cash and never got it from ONC, ONC never promised cash, and I'm sure never contemplated providing cash considering the importance of its cash reserves to ONC's own plans.
my point is that if you looked at tth at the time of onc's acquisition, it was obvious even then that tth needed cash. for onc to properly support its equity investment in tth, it would have made sense to acquire the 6.8M shares from tth (not its shareholders) or at least participate in future tth financings to maintain if not increase their equity stake AND give tth the cash it needs.
i agree with you that they really couldn't give cash to tth because they need(ed) it for themselves - one of the reasons i was upset with the original deal in the first place - but it begs bigger, questions - why did the deal even happen in the first place, if onc knew they couldn't support tth with cash? what did this deal ultimately accomplish and who benefited?
If he doesn't make ONC and reolysin a success, where's his gain?
as a memeber of the original vendors group, BT gets a cut of the 20% royalty on reolysin, no matter what happens to onc and its stock.
obviously a partnership and royalty deal will initially benefit onc and the stock, giving it credibility and legitimacy that certainly seems to be lacking now, especially considering the apparent safety & effectiveness of reolysin.
what management does with any upfront & royalty money will ultimately determine how successful onc will be longer term. if the tth deal is any indication of what can be expected, i think the long term is put into question for onc & its shareholders, much more than what otherwise should be the case.
i'm still here because i am intrigued with the story of reovirus - how its cancer fighting properties were only discovered serendipitously while looking for something completely different - where even Dr. Lee thought the suggested experiment of his student was a "stupid idea", but ultimately that "waste of time" led to the discovery that reovirus killed certain cancer cells.
i've put serious (for me) money into this stock, and while i took some profits in the mid 4's, i still hold 3/4 of my original, substantial (for me) position.
what may keep me from staying long term is that i don't like that 1) Lee is apparently completely out of the onc picture and is long gone from Calgary. maybe he "had served his useful purpose", but the question of why he doesn't even appear to be associated with the company in any way isn't a positive, imo.
perhaps related, is 2) the seeming lack of accountability put on management. situations where too much control in too few hands too often lead to abuse by those who are in a position to do so with seeming impunity.
i'm still hoping that the positives of reolysin will outweigh the negatives of poor management judgment, but i won't join the chorus of cheerleaders with rose-colored glasses here just because the increase in the stock price is making me (and them) money.