Good to see some response from Chris Wood. I have personally commented that the main matter which has irked me was the cash incentive for Athan for doing a CR at these lows.
I have personally contacted the company and similarly expressed this directly as I only say things otherwise would say direct to the company.
I have also stated that Athan has done good things in the past but like many good standing shareholder been quite clear not happy with cash bonus given to Athan for raising capital at record lows.
For most incentivising executives is fine but incentivising for raising capital at record low prices is where they have erred. And the founders need to understand it is no longer just their company but now owned by all the shareholders, so glad to also see they seem to be recognising the need to re-evaluate some of these incentives if I take the point about board discussing this next week.
I personally think the founders are a little on the naive side to not realise that for a speculative company having to raise capital and offering cash incentives (instead of shares) at this stage is never a good look....and especially never a good look to be offering the Chairman / CEO cash incentive for raising capital at record lows.
Chris Wood's email is nice to read and I agree with him that some posters had gone too far. But unfortunately he and his other co-founder need to shoulder some of the blame with other board members for allowing things to escalate on here with changing all the incentives to cash incentives and in particular the cash incentive for Athan for raising capital. There would be similar outrage for any speculative company yet to turn a profit and raising capital and diluting shareholders with these sort of cash (short term) incentives rather than share based incentives (which align better with building long term sustainable performance) . They stuffed up on the latter and hence they need to front up and acknowledge that they screwed up on that regard and restore shareholder confidence that executive's are focussed on being rewarded for long term performance which share based incentives do much better.
The founders are definitely a bit green around this unfortunately and where do they go to get advice on executive remuneration ie their MD Athan? I don't think so.
