Good post carbonfibreI would have to agree that Hemosol's inability to secure a financing does not bode well for cascade.. As I mentioned in my last post, Hemosol would not have announced that they were working on a $15 Million dollar deal unless there was at least a memorandum of understanding - most times when a company announces a best efforts deal, the deal is already done. Obviously the suitor backed away whilst doing thier dd as something scared them.
If this cascade process was all that it was hyped up to be, why can't HML secure a financing and why have there been no other frac deals signed? I remember all too well when they announced the HML deal a few years ago, how the company told us there would be many more frac deals signed soon outisde of North America - still no other deals. This is exactly why the market is so fed up with this comapny.. Too many empty promises, so the market is now saying, "show me, don't tell me".
With HML's recent rollback, there are only 15 million shares OS, so with fridays hammering, HML now has a market cap of about $8 million. Obviously, the only thing HML has as a lifeline is it's exclusive cascade deal in north America. It also owns the $80 million meadowpine facility in ON, but I am unsure as to what sort of debt the comapny has on it's books, obviously any debt would be secured by the meadowpine facility. Surely the meadowpine facility, the cascade license with PLI and the intellectual property associated with all the R&D done on Hemolink should be worth a lot more than a paltry $8 million... I went into the market on friday and grabbed 10,000 HML shares at 0.52. Just could not resist, as you have to buy when there is blood in the streets.
Reflecting back on the cascade process, my sources close to the company told me that other fractionators who use the Cohn process are reluctant to change over, due to the huge costs associated with re-tooling their plants for cascade. So then why would these guys not do a deal with HML since they could have bought half the company for $15 million, and that would have left the $15 million investemnt on the balance sheet of HML in the form of cash? It would have also given the new suitor the meadowpine facility for pennies on the dollar. The fact that no deal has been done puts a grave question mark as to the viability of the Cascade process as a method for blood fractionation. The company has to answer to this, and not just with a lame-arse news release stating that they are working with HML. There are obvioulsy obstacles that are not being communicated to the shareholders.
IMHO, it's time to put this puppy into play, and get rid of Pierres multi voting shares and ask him to step down as pres. With all the promise that PLI has, Mr Laurin has forced us to the abyss, and another financing at this time is simply not an option. Perhaps it's time to lay off most of the staff so as to preserve what little cash we have left, and then hire an investement banker to seek alternative strategies, including the possibility of an outright sale of the company.
I do realize what I have posted here is quite extreme, but Pierre and the board had better have plan B, otherwise all of our shares might just become wallpaper. The vultures are circling. WE all know how compelling PLI's technologies are, but after many years of believeing in this company, and after many rounds of financings, we still have no meaningful revenues, and we are quikly running out of cash. Worse yet, our only meaningful source of cash, namely HML, is in serious trouble..
I am still in the process of backing up the truck wrt to PLI, but I have temporarily pulled my bids to see what transpires with this HML debacle. It's time for us longs to demand answers from the company.
JANDD