Mate, its their CEO, Luke Reid, playing silly buggers with the...

Mate, its their CEO, Luke Reid, playing silly buggers with the numbers again. Not good in my view: either he is trying to hoodwink shareholders by doing so or he is not trying to hoodwink shareholders and is just a crap communicator.

Upfront, my understanding is that "annualised run rate" simply means the number of MetaXplore kits sold in a period extrapolated into a year. So 50 kits sold in a month would be 50 x 12 = an annualised run-rate of 600 and 1,000 kits sold in a quarter would an annualised run-rate of 4,000.

Luke Reid seems to be straight line extrapolating the number of sales of the MetaXplore kit in a set period to estimate how many sales of the kit in a year. For instance in the Q1FY25 quarterly he reported that they had sold 1,832 kits in the September quarter (Q1FY25) and he then multiplied that number by 4 (4 quarters in a year) to come up with the annualised run-rate of 7,328. I suspect he is being cagey in not saying annualised "sales" as clearly 7,328 is just an guesstimate using a simple straight line extrapolation.

What I take objection to is that LR picks and chooses what period and what number of kits were sold so he can paint whatever picture he wants. Look at this snippet from the Q1FY25 quarterly. A couple of things stand out. First up, in the chart he selectively used half year results up until the quarter he was reporting on. By doing that he was able to give the impression that sales growth for the MetaXplore kit has been consistent whereas in reality sales in Q1FY25 flatlined compared to Q4FY24. The quarter was a set back but Reid attempted to put some lippy on it. Secondly, the annualised run rate for Q1FY25 is given as 7,328 and in another table in that report it is given that the actual number of kits sold was 1,832 and 4 times 1,832 is 7,328 which is the number used as the annualised run rate for Q1FY25 so we know that LR is just using straight line extrapolations for his annualised run rate numbers.



(This table is also from the Q1FY25 quarterly report and it clearly shows that growth in the number of MetaXplore kits sold was dead in the water for that quarter compared to the previous quarter.)

Then if you look at the numbers Luke Reid has put into the most recently released update there are some wobbly numbers. In the body it is stated that the Q2FY25 annualised run rate is 11,000+ while the annualised run rate for Q1FY25 was 7,238 (it was actually 7,328 but I'll forgive that as a typo) so simple maths says that the annualised run rate for H1FY25 would be the sum of the two numbers divided by 2 (7,328 + say 11500 = about 9,500 [these are rough numbers]). Instead Luke Reid has presented that the annualised run rate for H1FY25 is actually up there with the quarter-to-date extrapolations for Q2FY25.


So in broad terms it does appear that Microba is recovering from a dusty first quarter performance which at least provides some promise for 2025 calendar year. Also hopefully those two new hires will start to pay their way in how MetaXplore is marketed. Good to see the two elders of the firm - the chair and Ian Frazer - effectively back Luke Reid by recently buying on-market but it would be good if they've taken the opportunity to have a quiet word with him. If I had my druthers he'd be on his last chance as I think there continues to be far too much fart-arsing around - two websites, separate sign-upable "hub" for investors, mixing the senior executive team and advisory members up with the board, insistence on accepting of all cookies, bullshit numbers and narrative constantly being served up - and not enough runs on the board.

Anyway, that is my Sunday morning gripe. Luckily for Microbia no-one on hc reads these threads.