The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
This is the situation as I last spoke with Andrew. I will be speaking again next week but do not expect any change. The company needs money to continue. It does not need a lot of money to turn it around. $200k would do it. That is where the red tape comes in. $200k is approximately $100 per shareholder. But the company is not allowed to ask the shareholders for the money. It would cost maybe $400k to get the paperwork to a point that they could ask the shareholders and then there would be still major hurdles stopping the fund raising. Some shareholders are out out the UK some out of Aus. That is double the paperwork.
The company may be stymied from asking the shareholders, but there is nothing to prevent the shareholders from getting together and raising the equivalent of $100 per shareholder and then going to the company and saying "let's save this".
In this current market nothing is happening anywhere. I have spoken to the former Chairman. He gave me nothing to cheer me up. I will follow up later next week.
I have the view that a miracle is needed in this current climate. As such I am viewing this in that manner and putting a line in the sand. I am going into protection mode for my family.
I am also trying to picture the new normal on the other side of this pandemic. This will be a costly exercise in life, in social values and economics. Whatever the cost, it will be borne by all and come as less disposable income. Which in turn is a lower standard of living. Luxuries will be fewer and or the appeal of overseas travel will be less.
This has been a sudden reality check for all. It will not just start up as if nothing happened. It will start slow and cautious and will have to grow organically.
I have not given up yet although I am really concerned now. I should be meeting with the former chairman of UBE on Tuesday (he is a large shareholder in our salt deal and should attend). I will see what he has to offer.
The problem is that a prospectus that complies with the regulatory bodies costs money and that is more than what is needed to be raised.
I will be blunt and straight to the point. The latest funding deal has fallen through due to conditions out of the company's control. Only $AUD50K was received. There is no hope for any more from that source. The business model is sound. All it needs is a targeted marketing campaign and it would be self funding to achieve the figures to re-list. That initial $250K promised would have done this in spades. So the company still needs $200-250K AUD or 128K GBP. The company cannot ask you for help. It has to spend double that to ask both the Australian and the British/EU shareholders and abide by the financial redtape. It can only ask "sophisticated investors" to put some funds in. It can, however accept funds from existing shareholders (there are over 1000 Nyota shareholders) that put their hands up and say "I have some funds and I want to buy more shares".
FYI When the Ubecoin deal came along, several factors prevented the company from including the UK shareholders, and a missed milestone prevented a roadshow to the UK brokers. At the time Ubecoin picked up a cornerstone investor that was going to invest more than enough to make the company successful and relist. On that basis I invested the shortfall to finalise the IRAE side of the deal. In spite of putting that cornerstone investor on the board, he did not make good his promise. Since then the whole business has struggled financially. The model is fully ready to roll out in a clear concise manner.
Only a small sum of money is needed in the scheme of things.
They are not worthless. They have potential. Red Tape has been the issue to date, and an investor that reneged on his agreement. The company was remodeled to suit Big Dish but being dual listed made too many hurdles (AUS red tape protecting shareholders). That made the company worthless. Shareholders went into denial. The UBE deal could not raise funds from shareholders because of UK red tape. Had shareholders stumped up $300K extra we would be listed now. That would have allowed the company to still have momentum without the non investor.
The company now has some money with more to come. It can start doing what it is supposed to do. Now we can see if they can perform. They are confident that they can and will relist. Do a little homework as to the value required to relist. You will find that there is an increase in the share value of the last traded price.
I got a reply saying that there is a blockage via computershare, and use the contact form in https://ubecorp.com/home/
I will check tomorrow if they have received the email. The model is sound. It needed money thrown at it and it still needs money thrown at it. Raising funds has a lot of red tape and therefore a lot of costs. Our initial raise for this closing Dec 2017 could not include UK because of the Mum and Dad rules and it could not be promoted to the sophs because the supporting documentation had not been supplied.
At present the company cannot even ask if the shareholders would stump up some cash. Which in my opinion is a shame.
You should be able to get them transferred into your own name. You should also get in touch with Andrew Wright.
You still have your shares. Because they are no longer listed on AIM or ASX for that matter, they are still shares in an Australian public company. Because your broker can no longer trade them, they have removed them from their trade-able list. send a letter to Ubecorp and they will list the shareholding under your name directly which should be a better position for you. This way you get the info directly and do not have to rely on your broker who may or may not pass on any info.
Make sure you give a email address as this will in the future give better communication.
At last we have an updated website with corporate data. This means that we investors can get information on a regular basis.
https://ubecorp.com/home/
Chairman resigns. We should progress now.
I have not gone. Trying to get some info first.
The end game is to get relisted. UBE rolls out the FTB program. The token is on exchanges. How and when is proving difficult. No money means that they cannot promote which means no real traction. There is a 1000 shareholders (from NYO) which cannot be tapped because they have to jump through red tape to do so.
They are still ticking away. Most token sales will happen in the last few days. They have enough with the sales to date to start promoting the FTB business with the listed tokens on two sites.
Get in touch with the company. They have been hamstrung for funds. Firstly because of red tape they could not raise capital for the RTO. Unless they had spent $2-300K on paperwork so that the retail shareholders in UK could participate. Then most of the UK holders are with brokers and the brokers have not been passing anything on.
Ube had no funds but they had a person who promised GBP5M. It did not come. The ICO did not work nor did the TGE. They have raised a little money for the listings on a listing or no money basis.
https://www.blockchain24.co/top-13-european-crypto-exchanges-in-2019/ Latoken #3 in EU
Latoken EOS is now live. The intention is to flow with these two EOS and then an intention to list on a stock exchange (LSE). There will be a rush on so that the IPO does not flow into Christmas.
They will also be on Latoken. The Ubecoin website has been upgraded. The company is starting to move. Buying tokens is one way to support your investment. Another way is by contacting the company and see it you can invest directly. Who knows.
All is still on track. It is a very tough market out there.The problem all stems to money and red tape. And what comes first. They have next to no funds. Irae only had enough to do the deal. Ubecoin had nothing. At the time they had a promise of a wack of cash which did eventuate. The ICO did not fire and the TGE is confirming that the big money has moved on. The consolidation has happened, the name has changed however the notices have not gone out. This is purely monetary. It costs to send the notices out to over a thousand shareholders. Selling the tokens is the least dilutive way of raising the cash.
Red tape prevents them from certain cash raising methods. It restricts them to the sophisticated punters. Thus what money that does come in must be prioritised. The notices are near the top of priorities.
They need to be able to market which means money. They need to list the tokens on an exchange which takes money plus a number of tokens in circulation. They really need the tokens on an exchange to have the free trade barter model to work efficiently.
I am still confident that they are going forward even though it is slow.