Memo: Peter Wall, PhytoTech chairman and Partner in Steinepreis Paganin law firm
From HotCopper Diary
As an experienced lawyer, you will no doubt be aware that the chairman is the guardian of a company's reputation.
With this role in mind, Diary urges you to return from overseas to address the issues and widespread market speculation which have plunged PhytoTech shares into a free-fall.
The threatening, foul-mouthed and abusive Facebook posts and emails circulated in the name of Ross Smith made his sudden resignation from the PhytoTech Board this week inevitable. And while Smith claims his Facebook and Gmail accounts were hacked, even he doesn't deny being the author of a host of these tirades.
With The Australian newspaper reporting that Smith is now the focus of a police investigation in relation to these scribblings and PhytoTech shares continuing their plunge from 92c to around 30c today, it is time you emerged to set a few records straight.
Among these is the serious matter of whether Smith has been retained by PhytoTech as a consultant. This speculation just won't go away. Worse, given Smith's outrageous behaviour, it is damaging the company. If it is wrong, it is incumbent on you to formally reject it. If it is right, shareholders would like to know that too.
Diary hopes it is wrong.
Diary also believes that in the very least it is a matter of good corporate governance that you clarify the facts surrounding the issue of any performance rights to Smith.
Smith claimed in a FB post this week that he was entitled to his first two parcels of performance rights, which can be converted into millions of PhytoTech shares, because the stock's five-day VWAP had exceeded the 60c hurdle set in the IPO.
He also claimed that the millions of additional performance rights he stood to gain based on certain achievements "were in the bag" thanks to the talented managers he put in place.
Does this mean, Mr chairman, that Smith can pocket these latter parcels of stock despite no longer being a director or executive? Surely these matters are worthy of your clarification.
If you don't think so, perhaps the ASX will awake from its PhytoTech slumbers and pin a query tag on your falling stock. After all, the ASX has a penchant for asking companies about the direction from which they think the sun will rise, so Diary can only imagine that this issue will eventually tickle their curiosity.
From HotCopper Diary
As an experienced lawyer, you will no doubt be aware that the chairman is the guardian of a company's reputation.
With this role in mind, Diary urges you to return from overseas to address the issues and widespread market speculation which have plunged PhytoTech shares into a free-fall.
The threatening, foul-mouthed and abusive Facebook posts and emails circulated in the name of Ross Smith made his sudden resignation from the PhytoTech Board this week inevitable. And while Smith claims his Facebook and Gmail accounts were hacked, even he doesn't deny being the author of a host of these tirades.
With The Australian newspaper reporting that Smith is now the focus of a police investigation in relation to these scribblings and PhytoTech shares continuing their plunge from 92c to around 30c today, it is time you emerged to set a few records straight.
Among these is the serious matter of whether Smith has been retained by PhytoTech as a consultant. This speculation just won't go away. Worse, given Smith's outrageous behaviour, it is damaging the company. If it is wrong, it is incumbent on you to formally reject it. If it is right, shareholders would like to know that too.
Diary hopes it is wrong.
Diary also believes that in the very least it is a matter of good corporate governance that you clarify the facts surrounding the issue of any performance rights to Smith.
Smith claimed in a FB post this week that he was entitled to his first two parcels of performance rights, which can be converted into millions of PhytoTech shares, because the stock's five-day VWAP had exceeded the 60c hurdle set in the IPO.
He also claimed that the millions of additional performance rights he stood to gain based on certain achievements "were in the bag" thanks to the talented managers he put in place.
Does this mean, Mr chairman, that Smith can pocket these latter parcels of stock despite no longer being a director or executive? Surely these matters are worthy of your clarification.
If you don't think so, perhaps the ASX will awake from its PhytoTech slumbers and pin a query tag on your falling stock. After all, the ASX has a penchant for asking companies about the direction from which they think the sun will rise, so Diary can only imagine that this issue will eventually tickle their curiosity.