Hi everyone
I hope you are all having a relaxing and happy Sunday!
I have been sitting back over a large mug of coffee reading all the great input on this thread. Lots of excellent thoughts from many people.
was totally surprised bye this outcome. I sat through the whole AGM and I didn't see this coming - although I did think that Axel looked particularly unhappy. Not that he is ever Mr Smiley, mind you, but he did look particularly grim throughout the whole event.
As others have pointed out, the Chair directed all proxies in the affirmative, so it would not seem to be a falling out within the Board. I can't see this as anything other than a surprise move/ambush by unknown (to us) 3rd parties.
I don't see it as a disaster. Through the early years, when Axel was a Senior VP in GSK, having him on the Board gave Imugene some significant credibility when it was otherwise a largely unknown and disregarded tiny fish swimming in (by global standards) a lonely backwater of Biotech. Once he left GSK that value dropped, but at the same time Imugene's size, scope and profile had grown to the point where it no longer needed him in that way. I'm sorry to see him go, because so far as I can see Axel made a major contribution to the strategic development of Imugene and he brought a lot of experience and contacts to the table, but I'm far more interested in who will be replacing him, and how that will be determined.
My other thought is that this is the first genuinely murky (or was it Mercky???) event that I have seen with IMU. I don't know exactly what it means, but the general meaning is clear. This event signifies that major forces with major money are now in play. We have all suspected that for a while, but now we have proof.
Imugene is no longer a largely unknown and disregarded little fish in a global backwater.
For me - on balance - that is a good thing. I was
far more concerned that someone with strategic intelligence and deep pockets would take us out with a ridiculous lowball offer when we were sub 10 cents a share. I'm pretty confident that any attempt to control Imugene now would become a huge bidding war, in which even retail investors like most of us here would benefit. I also think that, with the IP now so diverse, this is more likely to be about outside players jostling for position in negotiations over specific products, rather than a whole of company buy out.
Anyway - after starting out as a one pot screamer balanced precariously on a camping stove next to a tent on a lonely mountain top in 2014, Imugene now has at least 5 massive pans sitting on a very large commercial cooking range in the Global Biotech Brasserie. With secret games being played that are big enough to eject a Board member, someone just turned up the heat by several notches.
2022 will be fun.
Cheers
Dave
(20min delay)