A message from an old Friend. (Taking my Time).19 Nov 2021 04:23
"Several thoughts:
1. The dilution is almost negligible (2-2.5%).
2. If we think the cash is going to be used for a good purpose (and I do think that), it's a little dubious whether it should even be called a dilution. The cash may well increase the value of the company in the medium term more than the dilution percentage, if so, we've not been hurt at all.
3. The discount (10%) is pretty small compared to a lot of placings / rights issues. If we've got IIs coming in at that discount, it's not horrible.
4. Those of us who no longer have a UK address were precluded from taking advantage of the discount, as were those who didn't have free funds. A rights issue would have been better from that perspective, it gives people time to maneuver.
5. The optics are horrible because the CEO has never bought in but gets a nice discount. Honestly, if he wanted options at 14.5p he could have asked for them when he came on board.
6. The fact that there's been increasing shorting going on makes the optics even worse.
7. The optics are also horrible because a lot of recent statements look disingenuous at best.
8. I think from a purely financial perspective, it's not hard to see this as a good move. From a PR / investor relations perspective, it's very poor, even though practically investors are probably better off because it's a relatively inexpensive way to pick up some cash.
9. Institutional investors who have picked up shares in this are likely pretty sticky hands.
10. The fact that I was excluded from taking part in this probably doesn't hurt me because in all probability they've scared or ticked off enough PIs that the SP will drop to that price and I can get shares at close to that price if I want to.
I'm not still invested here because I love the CEO / BOD. I'm invested here because I believe in the asset. I don't see anything in this that changes that. Not sure whether I'll buy into the sell-off that I see tomorrow or not. The gold is still there.
But I certainly do have mixed feelings about this. I don't feel like we've got a BOD that has played a straight bat with PIs. At the very least they haven't given proper consideration to how their words and subsequent actions will look to the small to medium size PI. That's unfortunate."