Ann: Requisition of Meeting under Section 249D, page-29

This is classic guilt by association.

Surely you understand that Hurrel consults Ferghana Partners in a scientific capacity only?

Are you sure Hurrel negotiated the terms of the deal with Diasource? You seem to be implying that he did.
As a consulting scientist to Ferghana Partners I can't imagine he had anything to do with it. Not his bag.

Same at ADO. He wasn't acting in a financial role at the time. Who was? Oh that's right! Good old Richard Martin. Former ADO CFO AND Director of the very finance company that much more convincingly "shafted us": First Cape.

That's one person I think thoroughly deserved removal by EGM or any way possible. For sure.

Sickman is a Director of Diasource but he has a lot of commercial acumen. The reason you're suspicious of him is you don't want to deconstruct what normally happens in financial situations involving risk.

It might seem difficult to comprehend, but Diasource wanted to a) protect itself and b) take advantage of a potential commercial opportunity that was potentially good for both parties.

In. That. Order. This is the normal commercial world.

As CEO, GC had final responsibility for the conduct of the financial negotiations and the content of the final Diasource agreement as negotiated by himself and RM and his legal team.

Why is he always such a victim? If he was a desperate man at the time of signing it was his responsibility as CEO that the company was in that state, wasn't it?

IMO everything was a shambles because GC overshot to blazes on his predictions of imminent glory, or perilously close to that, or stopping short of that but dropping colossal hints all over the place and raising expectations (so Matt Sanderson and a now angry crowd). Gifted salesmen, each.

As a result GC:
- failed to nail down the financing with the Canadians as they became increasingly more aware of risk as the POC1 deal started to evaporate and doubts grew over the rest. (Circumstances suggest this was the case).

- acted at the AGM as if that was a betrayal (yet it's what financial institutions do when one of your promises doesn't come to fruition. You start to doubt the others and up the interest rates go correspondingly).

- later acted as if it was a betrayal that Diasource didn't implement our technology across the board. They didn't do that for precisely the same reason other companies didn't do that; huge regulatory cost. (Yet he knew that at the time of the AGM prior to the execution of the deal. Because he told me it would be new tests only. I believe at that point he was simply winging it.)

People forget that if deals came through Diasource probably would have implemented our Anteofix Anteobind technology throughout their portfolio over time and absorbed the cost because we would be financing the takeover. (Not them). This is risk management.

Nobody held a gun to GC's head and said sign up or else.

He'd put himself in a position where he had no choice but to accept terms that were appropriate to that level of risk as perceived by Diasource and their lawyers. You have to ask yourself what would any other company in their position have done.

GC called out yet another betrayal. But is it realistic let alone fair, to frame what happened in those terms? Surely it shows lack of commercial acumen if all you can do is blame others.

The terms of the Diasource deal to protect themselves would be standard for an agreement such as this if it was in any way uncertain that ADO could bring in the big deals. We needed deals to finance the takeover. What else did he expect? They're not Santa Claus and remember we were meant to be taking them over!

IMO GC did not say so expressly but gave the impression that Diasource income would self-finance the deal. At least that was what everybody hoped and he certainly failed to correct that impression. If he failed to understand that from the contract, then his lawyer was remiss, but I think that is most unlikely. Most contracts these days are drafted in plain english and are relatively easy to understand.

So why is everyone is up in arms again? Wanting blood of anyone connected or remotely connected, with the Diasource deal?

Diasource simply understood the ADO elves were making high cost widgets nobody wanted. They were not Santa.

"She'll be right" is not a working philosophy in any field involving risk management.

The financial world has a premium for high risk, it's called high interest rates and penalty-free get-out clauses in contracts.

Did First Cape do a deal that was good for ADO shareholders? Not so much! Were we desperate? Yes.
Who made that call? RM and GC the old A-team.

The issue isn't just​

1. does the present team have the capacity to bring us commercial deals? ​

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It's also​

2. do they have good risk strategies in place so we don't overreach again?​

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If the second scenario happens again in the commercial world (and not in Santaland) we're finished. It's all over. IMO.