Quite a precarious spot us shareholders are in at the moment. This is really going right down to the wire and many of us are so heavily underwater that our decision to hold onto our shares is based on hope. Where did our swagger go? We all used to be quietly confident this was the one that would be a winner. The dream has turned into a nightmare for many. I am considerably down on my investment and I have the added humiliation of sprucing PAR to numerous family and friends. The latter is actually more difficult for me to come to terms with than myself being well in the red. Lesson learned for me!
That being said, PAR’s current predicament is taking lots of space in my mind at the moment as I want to make sense of how we all arrived here. I still have hope that PAR can turn this around but it is hope, and not based on anything tangible. Science alone is crucial but not be enough in itself and we currently have a vey poor management team (excluding the science).
When going over how weall got to this dire position, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that usshareholders have been misled. Quite a big statement to make but I believe wehave been, but not through any malice or greed, but from management naivety.
If we all go throughthe many management presentations, there are numerous statements that thecompany made that were just not true. Timelines not met, processes not fullyunderstood, relationships with big pharma over exaggerated all fall into thiscategory.
The company also doesnot seem to be truthful and upfront to shareholders in regard to big pharmabeing disinterested in Zilusol. If the product is as good as we are led tobelieve, and if the IP is as strong as we have been told, it makes no sensewhatsoever that pharma would not want to lock in Zilusol now. Not tomorrow, notnext month or next year, but right now. They should be banging on our door.That’s not the case as we seem to be the homeless bum with an empty beggingbowl.
I also have come tothe conclusion that the board lack genuine solid relationships with the right peopleto execute a deal. Management seem to have a lack of understanding of theprocesses involved in deal making, cannot accurately forecast outcomes, have incorrectintuition, and have a delusional view of the company's standing.
There has been morethan enough time for solid and genuine relationships to be fostered with bigpharma, competent consultants, and larger institutional investors. That’s thejob of a CEO, so this sits squarely with Paul. It's obvious this was the case along time ago (I have mentioned this well before), and a good CEO should haveat least identified this and hired the right people to account for any of theexisting management shortcomings. Paul thought though he could do all thishimself working only part-time. Remember, he had a total of four roles at onetime, being CEO and Chairman of two ASX-listed companies.
Paul really should have been more focusedon identifying and resolving these shortcomings. The question I would ask himis, do the big players in pharma know who he is, and would they pick up thephone if he called them? If the answer is no, then he should have hired someonewho they do know and would pick up the phone to. If the answer is yes, then thequality of these relationships is poor because he was not told the honest truthand just given the polite treatment from BP that Paul has interpreted as interestand subsequently was the source of his naïve belief that a deal was near.
Another contributing factor working againstus at the moment is a lack of credibility. If you go back over the past 4years, Paul has ad nauseam dangled the carrot that a deal is close by.Investors had been told during the Credit Raise that targets are nearly met toget non-dilutive funding in the form of a deal. Just before the last raise, PARwas promoting strongly that they are looking at non-dilutive funding, and thenall of a sudden, they contradict themselves and go to the market with adilutive credit raise. Even then, shareholders were told that after the raise,there will be enough funds in the bank to satisfy Chinese and Latin Americanpharma. We were told that the only roadblock to inking a deal was the amount offunds in the bank as the OS pharma companies did not want to contribute unlessthey had confidence that there were enough funds (together with the funds to bereceived in the deal) to get to the end of the trials. It’s fairly obvious nowthat there are not enough funds in the bank. Once again, Paul has steered theship, and he seems to have got the cashflow forecasts wrong again which hasonce again put the company in position of weakness. The regional deals, ifdependent on the company having enough cash to finalise the trials, seems to befurther away now than what it was just after the raise.
Now, after all of the above, how can I nothave serious concerns regarding the competency of the current exec management?I therefore believe that we need new people (replacing the old) who can atleast repair this credibility issue and who can cut through all the hype anddeliver deals… many deals. It’s a huge problem when no one believes a word thatcomes out of your mouth anymore.
I understand that the above is quite aharsh assessment, but it is how most of us view the current predicament usshareholders are in. I don’t trust a word that is told to us and I don’tbelieve management really have a good handle on reality.
Finally, well done to Paul for the scienceand getting it this far, but the current board, in their current position, isway past its used by date and in its current form is value destructive to usshareholders.
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