Ann: Appointment of Chairman, page-15

Let's look a the information and expertise before the Board and in the company at the time of decision-making to finance the Diasource "takeover".

Mark Bouris then Chairman had the finance expertise to apply himself to the relevant questions, including forseeing the financial risks.  It seems reasonable to conclude either he did not, or if he did, not to the extent to avert the financing conundrum we are still mired in.

Current Chairman John Hurrell is not a finance expert. He has senior management experience, certainly.
From the Ferghana Partner's website:

Dr. John Hurrell joined Ferghana in 2013 as Strategic Transaction Advisor, Diagnostics/Tools Sector, to augment the firm’s scientific expertise.
John is a Harvard Medical School Fulbright Fellow (monoclonal antibody technologies) and has a PhD in Biochemistry/Immunology and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry/Chemistry from Melbourne University.

I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that Hurrell does not have shareholder's interests at heart just because of an association with Ferghana Partners based on scientific expertise. Presumably he is adept at evaluating sound science targets, from duds and that would be a key function.  The fact that he's got onto the ADO board (now Chairman) is a vote of confidence in ADO.

If he were ADO Chairman at the relevant time, you'd expect him to have had an active involvement in the financing aspect.  But he wasn't and I don't expect him to second guess what others are doing in that capacity.

On the reverse side, do you seriously think that Hurrell was active in striking the precise terms of the deal being brokered? I think not. AFAIK it wasn't his function at Ferghana.

Somebody dropped the ball on risk management at ADO. I've made it clear what areas are responsible in previous posts and ultimate responsibility was with the Chairman. That has been fixed.

Who else was around?
Geoff Cummings. Lovely man. Well regarded. Enthusiastic about ADO. Possibly naive as a CEO. Not a financier.

Richard Martin.
Chair of Audit and Risk Committee. At that stage he was CFO. I'm not impressed that he had no answers at the AGM on what went wrong.  Nothing in the recent Risk report made me happy (yes, I know it's routine, but seeing the statements seemed to crystallise my issues on this).

I believe the other key risk management and legal person has left the company.

Before we all decide to put the new Chairman in stocks and find him guilty by association with Ferghana, let me say that I am happy that we have a new CFO, Peter Harding-Smith to complement him in the new role. PHS seems to be a straight talking person. I found him engaging and reasonably alive to the need for a higher degree of shareholder responsiveness.  I would like to think that both he and the new CEO have the capacity to focus on strategic issues, including financial issues. I understand that PHS has experience in fighting takeovers. The capability of the new CEO are undeniable in taking us into a world arena.

Whatever the whys and wherefores of what happened with the Ferghana Partners recommendations, the terms of the convertible note, the dodgy attempt at brinkmanship, the recourse to loan facility with Bergen, the missing shares, the accumulation at artificially low prices etc etc it is worthwhile pondering that the people ultimately responsible (either by omission or commission), are not in charge anymore.  (imo.)

The discussion in here is interesting and I'm almost beside myself on what's been happening to the SP but I am hopeful that an end could be in sight if funding alternatives can be arranged, to settle our most immediate problems.

I'm not rash with the knife but I would like to see Richard Martin more accountable. These are financial matters.  What the heck was he thinking?

Let's make sure we put sustained pressure on those in the relevant positions in the future. This means agitating, co-operating (yes another appeal in here for that) and also showing up to put this on the line.  (yes I was a no show at the AGM but let's not go there again..)

I am for asking the difficult questions, but we need to be careful about letting our imaginations run too far as well.

As ds has pointed out, we have a vastly different company now to what we had previously. Not trying to shut down discussion, it's well worth having re broker data, extrapolations etc. but let's try to be reasonable towards the new incumbents.