Pringle speaks, page-2

Great little video of the new director, he sounds very good and I particularly like his corporate governance background which is a weakness with this company I believe, especially after losing one of the best possible corporate governance people in the world - very sad to see you go Sir Andrew.

I liked his words in relation to Capital Return to Shareholders:

"Where you have cash reserves and feel the capital is surplus to requirements and can't be responsibly deployed, it should be returned to shareholders, as owners of the business. This is something very much front of mind for the board and myself. The methods of capital return can vary, using approaches such as dividends and buybacks, but the current approach of maintaining a buffer for adverse conditions is a prudent one. The topic we debate is not 'should we maintain a cash buffer?' but 'how much of a buffer is prudent?'. Given our ambitions and programs this does need to be a sizeable figure."

Now they are excellent words and probably correspond to most shareholder beliefs but they need to be matched by actions. Clinuvel have stated to the ASX about a buyback of 1.5 Million shares and also used a $20 Million figure for this capital return to shareholders. Clearly their actions have not matched what they said to the ASX and I would find it extremely dubious if the board believe $180 Million cash in the bank is not enough after returning just 10% of capital to shareholders. The share price is at a 6 year low, sentiment is not great, it can be argued these are 'adverse' conditions and the board duty to protect shareholder interests should be coming into play with CUV the most shorted biotech on the ASX, kicked out of various indices and prime for a takeover. My opinion is they need to just do the bloody buyback (or pay a $20 Million special dividend) as soirees in Monaco of doubtful benefit to shareholders do throw some questions about this whole staunchly defending capital approach. No one can say the buyback has failed, it just was never implemented except for a tiny percentage of what was stated, and myself as an owner of the business expect it to be returned.

CASH IN BANK $200 MILLION - without 1.5 Million share buyback
CASH IN BANK $180 MILLION - with 1.5 Million share buyback completed and 3% less shares to share profits amongst forever.

I know what I would prefer - especially when $20 Million is only about 6 months worth of profits and will be quickly replaced in the bank with a stronger fiscal position of less shares/increased EPS.

All IMO DYOR