RE: CEO resignation6 Sep 2025 09:35
And another thing....as orders finally accelerate and production commensurately gains some traction (and the share price follows suit hopefully), this is not likely to be a company that bothers with a lot of the niceties larger firms with bloated head-counts engage in, perhaps even some things shareholders (especially smaller, private ones), have come to expect from a listed company. I'm not saying I approve entirely - certainly a small board saves money but we need another independent director and general outreach to the stock market has been poor - but the clear upside here is that path from gross profit to net income will likewise be a far smoother one. And for a company producing product at a 40%+ gross margin, having slim-lined overhead costs - which cascades through, by the way, a slim-lined business model which requires mostly annual OpEx, with minimal CapX - creates the basic predicate for enormous operating leverage, which would then should drive a parabolic response in the share. That's the theory anyway. Said a different way: perhaps the past 2 years of stumbles and struggles in Duress weren't entirely wasted. Instead, maybe that time was also used to upgrade a production process that is now sufficiently automated that it requires fewer professionals than ever to oversee so that now the likely architect of that improvement - Albani - is in a position to take over formally as CEO and focus exclusively on strategy, fundraising and opening new markets like Chile, as he's comfortable the company's cutting-edge (ok, that's a bit flowery language, but I admit, I find the whole low cost, very high spec panels impressive) production process is finally up to standard. Ergo, yesterday's RNS.
Do I think the lack of the usual nice comments in the RNS from either the company or Bowry indicated an acrimonious split? Yes, clearly. But do I think that acrimony is itself a sign of trouble at the Company? No. At worst its neutral as I believe Albani - an engineering PhD, btw, though admittedly in another field - is a bit of an unpolished gem and can actually prove a significant positive for the company going forward as I've described.