I see the option package and really this is excessive. They are...

I see the option package and really this is excessive.
They are based on performance milestones, one of which is probably if the company gets purchased.
THATS THE PROBLEM.
Given the ridiculous market cap of VLA, around $100M AUS, or in other words, just around $70M US, a bid of say $210M US, would be a share price around $1.72 AUS.
For a promising Immunologic, with very nice phase II results, and NO TOXICITY concerns, this would be a steal!
The inability of the share price to move higher is a HUGE issue.
The viruses are performing well.
The CEO is not.
The days before he was hired the share price was around 45 cents.
Here we are almost 3 years later with a share price of 57.5 cents??? Thats only a 30% gain in share price from the days before he was hired! IN SPITE OF ALL THE POSITIVE RESULTS!

The NASDAQ Biotech index, incorporating all the Biotech stocks, big and small, is up 150% in 3 years!
WHAT GIVES?

More impressive, (in a depressing way), is that VLA, is down almost 40% in the last 3 months, since hitting a high in early june.

An almost 40% drop in share price over 3 months, and the BOD rewards the CEO with 5 MILLION OPTIONS?

You gotta be kidding me. They should be holding his butt over a fire, asking why can't you develop buy interest?
The trial results have been as good as you could have hoped for, you have a respected NYC biotech analyst that has a share price target of $3 US (over $4 AUS), yet the share price is just 30% higher than the 45 cents it was at just before he was hired!

I think the CEO is worried if a bid of $1.50 AUS came in, shareholders would take it. SO he wants a ton of options at 50 cents so he can make a quick $5M.

He already has 1.2M options with his original employment contract at around 30 cents. Good till 2018.
I believe he made close to $600,000 in pay last year.
The BOD are giving him 5M options, in part to keep him around???
Where else is he going to make $600,000/year?
If he wants to leave, let him go, IMO. He has been a failure with regard to shareholder value, as the share price is dramatically underperforming, and a current market cap of $70M US is ridiculous.

The BOD need to be questioned on this, as they are also responsible for shareholder value, and their rewarding the current CEO, with 5M options, despite a miserable share price, is incredulous!

Dr Shafren has spent his life working on these viruses, and if VLA got bought out for $1.50, I think he deserves a nice $4M pay day for his discovery.

The CEO does not.

In fact this could work against the shareholders, as this CEO can now work on getting a "quick deal" at $1.50/share, and he will get almost a $5M payday with these new options, on top of another $1.5M from his original option package.
$6.5M for 3 years of non-performance, not bad.

I would consider $1.50 offer to be dramatically undervalued compared with what other technologies are being bought for.


I will vote NO to the CEO options.
I will vote YES to the CSO (Dr Shafren) options.

If the CEO quits, no big deal, the share price would probably increase!