MJP - Some certainty at last, page-11

In response to previous comments:

1) It's fair enough to conclude that there are no confirmed sales - yet.  This does not mean none are in the pipeline.  It is not normal for any management to advise shareholders of progress in the details of commercial arrangements before they are confirmed.  Sales pipelines are works in progress right until the ink is dry on a definite contract.  It would be folly to say any more about a prospective sale before both parties were happy with the deal, even where MoU's and LoI's are in hand.

2) Management are paid to make the decisions about marketing and publicity based on what they know is happening or needs to happen next within the operation and/or in the marketplace - info that other parties, including shareholders, could not expect to know nor be party to, nor to have as full an appreciation of the breadth of issues involved.  In this, shareholders may be part owners but they are not managers, and they need to understand that difference.  This could well be a good case to call on the phrase "put up and shut up!"

3) In my experience it almost always turns out that where there appears to be not enough information being given out about a subject it is not necessarily because management is slack or incompetent, but because there are complicated pathways being navigated that cannot be communicated intelligibly without putting a live webcam in the boardroom and on every managers desk.   In the end shareholders mostly get given either an explanation or an outcome that almost always justifies the silence.  

4) In the absence of such total management transparency, shareholders are obliged to take some things on trust; in particular that management is competent and is busy doing the things that need to be done.  Decisions are not the only thing that management does.  Decisions take time to implement, and chains of events have to happen in their proper order. Things take set amounts of time, and even the best laid plans often take longer than expected, especially when something is being done for the first time.  However it is often a good sign that management takes things slowly and carefully, because the details are being done right, and are not being rushed "because impatient shareholders are clamouring for good news".   It may well also be a good time to reflect on the thought that hiring a proven manager from a world-class corporate was more than likely to have been a good idea.  And that when that manager does not act in the way that we might like him to act, that may indicate that he knows something that we don't, rather than that he is not competent.

5) It would be a mistake to suppose that the management of any company is so shortsighted that they do not recognise that they need to have shareholders on their side.  As managers know both sides of the story, and in substantially more detail than shareholders can know, it is a fairer and more intelligent assumption to work from that managers either cannot provide anything meaningful or cannot disclose more information than has been announced at this time, much as they would probably love to do so.  Often it is a case that the news is that "there is no new news yet".  If that is announced impatient shareholders will claim management is sitting on its hands.  If they do not announce it management will be accused of concealing the facts.  In such a situation the problem is not so much with the managers but with the shareholders, who may be simply displaying unreasonable impatience.  

6) Nobody made any of us shareholders buy our shares.  Nobody promised us a guaranteed path to riches that was X months long, with no deviations.  MJP was, and for a long time to come will continue to be, a speculative investment, and like all such investments there are likely to be delays, disappointments, and a clear risk of losing some or all of that investment on the way to making a good return.  Let nobody complain when some of those uncertainties transpire to complicate our hopes of a quick buck!  If we invested and we don't like the ride then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.