Member Info for Cliostock

You’re almost certainly right, and I’m fairly sure Stuart will have brought the prospect to the table. Just doing what the company doesn’t want us to do but what we can’t help doing in times of no news, speculating!

Yes quite possibly. As is usually the case, we won’t know until we know. One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the form in which the multinationals will want to sell the technology. SA said in one interview that one of the interested parties wanted to put it into food, and I’m pretty sure none of them will be selling sachets via an online subscription service, they will want to deliver a product more accessible to the mass market. To me this begs the question; why can’t we sign distribution deals for Axis as we know it AND still sign another exclusive deal for one multinational to have exclusivity on doing what they wanted to do with it? SA says he will endeavour to negotiate our ability to still sell D2C in the U.K., so if the counterparty is agreeable to this I don’t see why they wouldn’t be agreeable to the product in its current form being available in other territories.

Toyin, Aquae was spot on with his reading into my comment. The initial order was placed with a certain anticipation of sales as mentioned earlier in that paragraph. SA is nice and frugal with funds, if he thought he was going to sell 4000 orders 15 months in, he would have only ordered a fraction of what he did, and wouldn’t have been paying to store the stuff. The lack of sales have been a hiccup, but he has recognised the cause of this and told us how he is going to set us back on the right path. The clock is very much ticking to make this happen whilst the stock is good, if lots of product expires, the launch can no longer be deemed a success in my opinion.

Bel I think in this instance TC refers to the US distributors that had strong links with the US Psoriasis Association. SA said when he decided to turn down the agreement for that territory we lost access to the association. Just poor communication on our company’s part making out previously like the association was very keen to help with our own D2C sales which has obviously not been the case.

Regarding the third party elastic walls distributors in Holland, I think we can use this arrangement to read between the lines that sales are a mere fraction of what was anticipated and SA calling the launch a soft launch has saved his skin. We took space in a warehouse near the manufacturer, very convenient for the one delivery we have taken from them! And as you say Bel, they delays in getting the product from Holland to the only real customer base in the U.K. has been causing issues. Luckily for us, SA has understood both these issues, directed us back to a B2B strategy and made moves to set up a distribution base here in the U.K. The clock is now ticking to show the actions behind the words.

There is one thing for sure, there are a lot of plates spinning. At first glance it’s impressive; he must be keeping track of and knowing the inside outs of the science itself, the Croda deal, driving B2C Axis sales, new Axis territory launches, the declined distribution agreements, the potential multinational deals, the oral study and following commercialisation, medibiotix & cleanbiotix which are supposedly in negotiations, new product formulations for acne and skin cream, did someone say dandruff?, and I’m sure I’ve missed others, about which hints have been dropped by SA over the years. Bearing in mind most of those points could and would be a full time job in themselves, how is Stuart keeping track and doing a good job of them all, maximising their potential returns? I’d suggest one of two answers to that. 1.) Stuart is extremely good at timekeeping and over the next year or so is going to pull some great results out of his hat as his work comes to fruition, he has after all asked for trust and patience. 2.) Stuart talks slightly too far ahead of his actions to keep us on side because we shareholders are so impatient, which is the sentiment equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul, time wise. I suspect a mix of the both is true, that Stuart is working extremely hard trying to produce progress wherever he can, but is sometimes getting slightly ahead of himself when encouraged by shareholders and a dropping share price. Im sure it’s for the greater good long term.

This thought is conjecture, but do we think Manprit, as a full time CFO in our little company may actually be taking on bits of work elsewhere in the business which may keep him very well occupied? We have a very limited headcount for what the company is trying to achieve, it makes sense that someone capable of taking a CFO position would be capable of lightening Stuart’s load somewhat.

You’re right it’s not like for like, it was just a nod to the point that a business can have a brilliant product or service, but if it’s not convenient enough or accessible enough for consumers they will not spend their money on it and that results in missed opportunity. But we can see without question SA is talking about gum and this is really good for everyone here if the company successfully taps into the acne market in a teenager friendly way. I believe this is one of Geoff Bells areas of expertise.

Yes there is certainly an element of that Toyin, those that really need it will be more likely to make it happen. But I suspect the product would be appealing to lots of people interested in the ‘healing skin from within’ concept that would buy it, but realistically wouldn’t prioritise it enough for it to become part of their routine like brushing their teeth, and I think I’m in that category.

There are so many overweight people in the country, and OPTI’s product isn’t flying off the shelves. I think it’s one thing to have a product that works and a whole other level to smooth that customer journey to the point they know about it and consistently buy it. Hey, this is Axis mk1, I’m sure the company is thinking about all this and will streamline everything in years to come for greatest shareholder value. The point is, a year in, it works, and sales are growing. You surely have to concede future optimisations like a chewing gum lend themselves to being so much more appealing to the mass market than daily powder concoctions?

Well said Bubs. My only negative about our Axis product is the faff involved with actually being a consumer of it. I have bits of eczema here and there that comes and goes and would have loved to have seen the effects of the product on my own skin. I cancelled my subscription because I have loads of boxes lying around unopened, just never remembered to take it, or never really wanted to drink the stuff. I’ve given a couple of boxes away for free to Psoriasis sufferers I know and generally when I ask for feedback they look sheepish and I can tell they haven’t bothered either. Emailed the company to ask if I can mix in with my protein powder for a shake, got a quick and scientific response explaining that ingredients in the protein powder could render the Axis blend useless, which is understandable.

I’m still a committed investor. It’s one product in one pillar. My point is that there are loads of things the company has to learn about the product and consumers etc and the Acne chewing gum is an amazing idea which will help us push sales forward. Elric asked if it’s difficult to do and SA said no. If they can put the Acne blend into a chewing gum or a sweet then they could do the same with Psoriasis, Eczema, Dermatitis etc etc. I think this is the type of thing that a multinational will want to do, with us just taking the royalties. I can’t see Proctor and Gamble delivering sachets of powder through peoples letterbox which they have to remember to make and then endure the drink, they will want to make it much easier for the consumers to see the benefits of so they buy buy buy.

I think we all know it’s a marathon not a sprint, it would just be nice if the company checked in more often to let us know how it’s going.

I’d agree with you Mol that having a new CFO and income isn’t really a very good excuse for delayed results, the CFO has been in place for months, and the income has been present since October 21, I’d struggle to believe it couldn’t have been planned for.

However I don’t really find it alarming or upsetting, I have just put it down to ‘one of those things’, the team have been very busy this year, and anyhow the market seems to have accepted the RNS today as good tidings.

Thanks for the update Elric, it’s good to see Stuart’s continued positivity and he clearly wants to say more than he is allowed to. There is either something good going on behind the scenes, or he is a monster raving loony.

I was pleased to see awhawh’s order number for 4051, taking into account Aquae’s latest list showing the previous order number of 3963, 9 days prior. This gives just short of 10 sales per day during this time period. I’ve been working from an average order value of £60. After removing the VAT element, it looks like we are currently working with a sales rate of around £178k PA. Not hugely exciting, but moving the right way. I agree with Bel when he says these sales volumes are priced in. This will now only move as the sales improve and market confidence returns.

I think people that are against trading, myself included, are only adverse to it because we’re rubbish at it. I choose not to do it myself but think it’s good for liquidity and the more people keeping an eye on this company looking for opportunities to buy in the better. I don’t think traders taking profits will hamper any SP progress much when the company performs in a way that genuinely increases its value.

Cheers Toyin

Hi Oleric, I respect your decision to sell out, it’s the most common advice given in the investing world if you smell something fishy about one of your investments. However I would respectfully challenge you on your talk of this heading to zero. Why so polarised? It’s not all about boom or bust. This share may have not turned out as it had the potential to so far, but the thought of it going to zero is madness in my opinion. The truth is most things in life which involve expectations fall somewhere in the middle of ‘best case’ and ‘worst case’, and that will be the case with SBTX. Applied to this company, you are right to see the poor sales and poor communication and you can feel the investors are miserable. Counteracting those negatives you have the fantastic science and products that are proven to work, we are in bed with Croda and at some stage another large company, and despite the direction of the past year, I do believe we have a brilliant selection of people on our team in Stuart, Cath, Geoff Bell and Martin Hunt. We’ve had an awful time recently and you might turn out to be right with your POS comment, more average to poor performances from the company and we’ll be a 15p a share company for the long term. But a bit of dynamic action from the team resulting in some good news, and a bit of luck, we have the potential to be much closer to a pound in a short timescale. Most investors know this and accept the risk, but if the red on your portfolio makes you itchy you’ve done the right thing and best of luck.

Good digging Mol. It does go to show things keep on grinding forward in the background without our knowledge. I doubt the later Skinbiotix set up was an oversight, more likely a nuance to do with there already being a Croda deal in place for that pillar, they might have been unsure if it was required.

I don’t think any realistic investor expects negotiating a deal for a whole pillar to be a weeks work, but let’s not be quite so forgiving. Any multinational will have in house legal representation, and SA will be astute enough to choose lawyers that will act how he wants them to act.

Anyhow, when the deal is at legals, that’s great, it means we have a chosen party and that is newsworthy and will keep the markets satiated for a while. Until then, it’s on our company and its chosen counterpart to allocate enough time to engage with each other and reach an agreement in principle. Weeks and weeks worth of work? Definitely. Months and months worth of work? Probably. A years worth of work? Absolutely not.

What no investor wants to see is a sustained silence which will cause the SP to drift back to 15p and lower. Communication is key and SA has firmly acknowledged this in his last interview with Elric. Personally, at this critical stage of the company’s commercial development, I would love to see SA on a monthly or bi-monthly podcast with Elric or similar.

I’m 99.9% sure we won’t need to raise unless for justifiable strategic reasons, but you’re certainly right in everything else you say Farris. When it comes to the markets, the jury is obviously out on our company at the moment. I think todays 7% drop is the old ‘no news is bad news’ sentiment, this time last year full year results had been out by now. Granted only a day or two, but the price movement speaks for itself.

Regarding SA taking the 1.2m distribution deals, I believe his next bonus/grant of options will be realised when the SP is over 88p for a certain length of time. On the face of it, his best interests are aligned with ours in building the share price and he gives a strong argument for his actions. I’m sure he is aware the longer the company leaves itself and us languishing at 20-odd pence, the harder it is going to be to get a substantial lift on news. I do trust he is trying to do the right thing by us, but I am nervous that he might think an acceptable timescale for announcing a deal can be measured in years, as has been the case with other pillars. I desperately hope this earlier pillar is seen as a greater priority. Bearing in mind the clock has been ticking 6 months already, if the timeline happened as we are told it did.

Regarding the 2021 results RNS pasted below by Aquae, it wasn’t a bad RNS at the time, but if memory serves me correctly the SP dropped about 20% before recovering.

There is lots of potential to disappoint the markets with this RNS. It’s the first time ever as an investor in this company I’ve been tempted to sell ahead of the release, which says something I didn’t want to hear about my subconscious sentiment. Logically, this company has a lot going for it. If information about Croda’s rollout or an Axis deal is hidden behind an NDA, I think it would be satisfactory to say something is happening but can’t be revealed because of the NDA, along with a guide to timescales. If nothing is mentioned about something, the market will not give the team credit for the hard work they are doing on that pillar in the background.