sydneysider- i agree with your concerns, it was the major one for me before buying in (that and, much as folks say "don't trust what you read on HC") the many posters here who considered it to be a big takedown and snake oil.
the russian tradition of reiderstvo "raiding" is alive and well, and yes ivcius, i can see that would have been a decent part of why vagif and his scientists went offshore to commercialise their research. that the initial factory is in tomsk, admittedly near lots of pines (but then so much of russia would be) but also in an economically depressed area and getting the local government onside is a big plus for me. if the factory gets "raided", the new owners would have production but not the intellectual property. i believe solagran is even fragmenting the production (geographically and amongst different subsidiaries) with insurance against this in mind.
the fact that the directors and scientists are so mad keen to get back into as many shares as they can lay their hands to gives me pretty much enough reason to believe the solagran story is not BS. future production is expected to diversify outside russia, i believe to NW USA and scandinavia.
the major sovereign risk with russia, and every other country with socialised medicine, is that their version of the PBS can dictate what the final price they will pay is. i believe that competitor products are far more expensive than $1k a course, so there should be plenty of wriggle room on price. but solagran really needs russia (with its 150m population of massive drinkers), pretty much as much as russia needs something like ropren to arrest the decline in average male life expectancy (it is now at 59 years- lower than bangladesh, pretty much because of alcoholism)
SLA Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
