The Chairman, Simon Moore needs to take responsibility for the company's demise. He ousted previous MD, then called the shots including ceasing the contract manufacturing work that PAL had been doing because he believed they were just about to start selling their own high margin product. WRONG, he shot himself in the foot then seemed to be like a bunny in the spotlight by not dramatically cutting operating costs, they burned through $29m in operating cost losses last FY alone. They gave many excuses but ultimately they stuffed so much that was under their own control, i.e. exiting contract manufacturing, not pulling cost levers etc.
I note not a whimper from Moore or the board, didn't even put their name to the announcement of VA appointment even though this would have been a board decision.
Their response to ASX price query less than a week before VA is something I have never seen before, effectively a 'nothing to see here' response. Well there was something to see there !
Even the fact that the shares were trading at 29.5 cents, after the one shareholder belted them down from mid 30's to 20 cents, shows that the company's disclosure of their precarious position was completely lacking. The shares should have been trading at a fraction of 1 cent. They simply refused to tell shareholders how they were tracking. Shameful and hopefully after ASX and ASIC are done they will be banned from being on other boards.
PAL Price at posting:
29.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
