Theratechnologies Inc T.TH

The problem

[SPCEO1]

The problem for TH is really a very focused one. It's share price has come up way short versus all other comparables during a huge bull market costing us all massive amounts in opportunity cost if not also real cold cash. The board and management have managed most every other respect of the company's affairs reasonably well.

So what can shareholders do to fix that problem?

Not much, unfortunately. Voting out board members is a way to send the message that we are not at all happy with the situation, but that does not mean it ill get fixed as unless someone wants to lead a hostile effort to replace board members, the board members we don't vote off will just replace those we do with whoever they please. The chances of real change occurring are not great.

Real change only occurs when there is an attempt to put up new board members to replace current ones and shareholders vote on that. I have no interest in pursuing that route of trying to fix the problem and it would lead to a huge diversion of management resources away from NASH and cancer until it was resolved, If someone out there wants to go that route, I have an obligation to my clients to consider whatever alternative is being offered and vote appropriately. So, it is possible I would support such an attempt withthe votes I control. But it is not likely as the disruption is likely unnecessary and the board only has this one major problem that they likely can fix if they choose to.

The board has already approved something to try to address this issue as Paul referenced as much at the end of the call yesterday. I am pretty sure I know at least what part of that attempted effort is and, in my view, it has a decent chance of at least limited success. And it is not as dodgy an effort as the Water Tower Research thing. So, we should probably give them a chance to see this effort through for a while.

But, we will be getting the proxy soon and that almost certainly will cause many of us some serious heartburn. So, tabling the conversation until we get that and also see what comes of the new effort to get the stock the respect it deserves is likely the best idea at the moment. It may be that after seeing the proxy and seeing what the new initiative is that we all agree that a message needs to be sent by voting one or more off the board. We certainly have the votes to do that if we wanted to. Hopefully, we will not want to by the time it comes to submit our votes.

Also, I think we can reasonably assume that the appointment of the two new board members last Fall was in anticipation of one or two currently on the board retiring from it. So, we need to wait and see who is actually up for election before we might pick who to target.

If we are really ticked off when it comes time to vote, we could vote everyone off the board and through things into a bit of chaos. I am actually not at all sure what would happen in that situation regarding building a whole new board. But that seems unnecesary and way too disruptive too. That would be something we would do only if the current board mucks some more things up and it seems like there is no other way to achieve the changes we hope they will implement.

Again, this board has done a lot of good things. The only major failure is the stock price. That is a pretty serious failure but it is correctable, especially because the board has done enough good things in the past to create a very intriguing company with two very big shots on very big goals that it should be easier than normal to fix the problem. Still, they cannot do what they have done in the past and expect things to change. The idea that if you build the better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door is not working. You need to get out there and tell the world about it. And given what they have pulled off in creating a whole new TH whose future has little to do with tiny HIV drugs and much to do with huge markets like cancer and NASH, all while using little in shareholder resources to accomplish that feat, they have a lot to crow about. They simply need to tell that great story to the right audience.

[Wino115]

Thoughtful response.  I'm guessing the Board is staggered, but haven't bothered to check. To me, the Board appointments last year were a bit odd both in timing and in what added skill they thought they brought along that would be helpful. I had thought you only ever brought them up at voting time and we vote on them for a normal term.  There is one really, really good thing the

[scarlet1967]

“The board members we don't vote off will just replace those we do with whoever they please” When some board members don’t get the votes the whole board should get the message which will be the fact that shareholders are not happy with those board members contribution another obvious part of the message is also we don’t want the replacements to have the same mindset. Let’s not forget most

[SPCEO1]

Voting out a board member or two would clearly send a message and it would likely be clearly recieved. But there is no guarantee it would lead to new people who would bring real change quickly. If the current board is responsible for the new board appointments, then those new appointees are likely to not rock the boat anytime soon after their appointment. They will have just been given a nice role

[realitycheck4u]

This post has been removed in accordance with Community Policy

[scarlet1967]

Unfortunately although there have been so many great suggestions on this MB not many have been directly communicating their ideas with the company. In a sense what is going on here is very similar to what has been going on at the company which is a lot of talking but not much action. After been emailing Leah multiple times per month for more than a year sharing yours and my suggestions with no

[qwerty22]

PPD in $15 billion buyout. Don't think it matter to the cancer trial, just interesting.

[Wino115]

Interesting. It was always a takeover candidate given the backing from Carlyle and Hellman Friedman private equity shops. Was public only briefly ( I know THTX isn't a PE backed firm, but having some smart money guys on the Board is very valuable and they should learn that from seeing the value creation with PPD in a bried amount of time. Soleus and whomever else they brought on with the OO

[palinc2000]

I dont know why  the weakest link  in the C suite still has a job,,,One has to  be hard pressed not to see the depth of management in all aspects of the business except except in ONE aspect ,,,,,I Does Paul have his hands tied or is he too solf ? It has to be one or the other

[SPCEO1]

As your own experience suggests, it does not seem that communicating with the company has a lot of favorable impact. In the Fall when the new board members were announed, I asked to speak with the Chairwoman of the board to get her insights into their skills and how they might help the company. At the time I was the largest shareholder (at least as far as the public records reveal) and a very long