Ann: Trading Halt, page-229

Cap raise now is the right strategy IMO.

If the upcoming 008 readout comes back as anything other than overwhelmingly positive, the SP will get crunched. New CEO would have been staring at the cash balance since he got into the job, well aware of the cash burn metrics, and has pulled the trigger on the safest bet for the company overall - shoring up the balance sheet. Not the most confident or boldest play, but it is definitely the safest. After all, the company needs to stay afloat into the back half of the decade to have any chance of commercialisation.

If the 008 data does come back inconclusive, MGMT would still need the funds to get through the remaining trials and to commercialisation. Only now they would likely be raising at sub $1p/share prices and with a far less attractive outlook. Pretty risky as a new CEO, and a really bad look for the company going hat in hand to the ECM. Fair enough to pull the trigger now and sort out the company's biggest controllable issue, balance sheet and cash burn, early on.

Biggest downside - Angry shareholders. But to be fair, the angry and frustrated retail shareholders out there are always angry about everything anyway. Nothing is going to change that other than a time machine and some good trial results. AGM questions will be heavily moderated too, so limited blowback that MGMT will really have to deal with them directly.

Sure, it sucks for those who have only been involved for a short time and are sitting in the red, but it happens. At least the company will be in a far healthier position after the raise and will then hopefully be able to recover those losses and then some over the next 5-10 years.