Sorry for not responding sooner. Truth is I've been trying to analyse my feelings about the announcement and what it means for the company and shareholders. Nor did I particularly want to reply to a thread with myself as the subject.
My feelings? Mostly relief. Like many here I first bought well over a decade ago. Seems longer. Take a trip and never leave the farm...been a hell of a long trip and not without its moments.
Put friends and family into it, all at much higher prices than where we've been of late, even allowing for Good Friday. A couple of years ago I bought 50,000 at $1.30. Don't know what I was thinking. Glad to say no-one over here blames me for that, or anyone else for that matter, certainly not Alan. The feeling that the bigger picture was being developed was always paramount. That it was taking longer than first anticipated didn't mean it wasn't going to happen. With Friday's revelations we are now starting to see the scope of the vision.
I don't wish to rake over coals either, Dino. No point. Water under the bridge. We are where we are. I think it's a great place to be. How we got there and how long it took is all history. IMO we now stand on the cusp of something truly special.
In terms of pure value investing there are very few companies, listed or otherwise, that operate self-sustaining businesses offering ongoing reliable revenues and a satisfactory return on investment. Certainly Unilife doesn't fall into that category.
Yet.
The global search for best-in-class technology that first led Sanofi to Unitract always required validation. After all, if Sanofi didn't want it, why would anyone else? So a significant Unifill deal with Sanofi, (or any other global pharma for that matter), validates everything - the original business model, the product, management and all the testing years of patience as well.
The other aspect is funding. As TDA has rightly said using LNC by way of example, the future of any enterprise is highly speculative and uncertain without adequate funding. Funding only comes from two sources - the market or the business itself. (BTW, Welcome back, TDA.)
The fact that Unilife/Alan has always been able to raise funds from the market, particularly more recently the US market, as and when required, has always been a major source of my confidence and belief that we would get there in the end.
IMO the broader market completely missed the significance of Crede Capital's involvement. Terren Peizer is nobody's fool. He would never invest in any company, or CEO, if they didn't meet his exacting standards. That he did, and at a premuim to the then market, was more than a little significant.
Then there were the shorts. For a long time I was concerned that their relentless pressure was something more than mere mortals taking their profits. Perhaps one or more of the elephants in the room conspiring to do what they could to sabotage what I have always believed to be the inevitable success of the company.
Whatever the reasons, I suspect they have had their day in the sun. Long term funding is sorted and we have a major, if not THE major Unifill deal we've all been waiting for, about to hit the bottom line. In this respect the news doesn't get any better - the participation of a leading US life sciences fund, leading into an unheralded phase of hyper-growth resulting in what will prove to be massive, rapidly growing, recurring revenues. Wow. Are there any other medical devices companies that clip the ticket on drug revenues earned in association with the use of their device? Alan said it would happen and it has. Talk about validation.
For me the final icing on the cake is the promise of earnings guidance commencing next year. By any measure that is an historic achievement and IMO will mark Unilife's coming of age. As these deals bed down and production comes fully on-stream we will be spinning off so much free cash it won't be funny. And when that happens we will see the re-rating we have all hoped for and believed in.
IMO this was a ground-breaking announcement. Unilife is finally emerging from the shadows of being a struggling R&D company into a fully-fledged global medical devices production house that will be the envy of many. Props to Alan and all the team at Unilife.
NLN!
UNS Price at posting:
47.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
