new all time high, page-11

SRX have 'budgeted' about 35% for marketing and stated that this is 'normal' - in my view too high and I have told them.

At some point there must be a winding back of this huge marketing spend. 25% would, IMO, be more reasonable when comparing to Cochlear or Resmed.

The problem is that without a breakdown we don't really know what this marketing spend is for. Is it to support current sales, or is a large chunk about building the market awareness for 1st line treatment - a black box and a very large one at that.

It would be good for someone else to ask the question at the AGM.

I also had penciled in a progressively larger profit to sales ratio due to the high gross margins. I was taken aback at the profit number for 2013 - a management shake up if not corrected soon - IMO.

PS the R&D is also getting out of control - look at the last 3 years spend and tell me what has been produced. $6m PA is a lot of playing around on the bench for no, as yet, return. I can't get excited about the 2020 'vision' BS.

GW has some work to do to bring the CFO and Marketing teams back into line. He may not be strong enough to take SRX to the expected future. Nice guy for sure, but nice guys don't always get the girl :-)