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Nothing said in the article or subsequently on the Bb’s overrides the fact that the main influencer of the situation is Stuart Ashman, both in the past and in the future. He has acted poorly in his position of power over the Croda numbers and is walking the same line on the acquisition performance. Looking back on my notes he did the same thing with the Axis subscriber numbers 4 years ago. He either has bizarrely missed the steps that need to be taken to rectify the situation or just doesn’t think he needs to. Both of which make me want to use my votes against him. If Croda wouldn’t be happy about a board reshuffle, they should allow him some slack in order to appease shareholders. We don’t want commercially sensitive information, we would be happy with a royalties received figure which given we don’t know the royalty percentage cannot even be extrapolated to an accurate overall sales figure. Given Croda clarity, most won’t care if the acquisitions haven’t hit their optimistic target as long as they are breaking even. If he can’t negotiate this Croda clarity after 6 months (by AGM) then we don’t need him playing at being ‘My first CEO’ with our company. Tell us what will change in the next 12 months? I am open to change my opinion and forgive missteps but how can I or any shareholder do that whilst feeling they are being deceived? The cover ups and communication blackout is appalling and should be called out, not defended or justified. If it is for justifiable reasons Ashman himself would do it. If this is going to be the awakening for SBTX, SA first needs to wake up.

Who knows what he is playing at. My votes are also going to removal of CEO and chairman unless clarity is provided before the AGM. As has been discussed recently, I can forgive mistakes and bad calls made in the past, we are all human and I don’t doubt even a bad move would be born from SA doing his best. But for heavens sake don’t keep the market in the dark. SA looks as though he has backed himself into a corner whereby he is either covering something up or is unable to negotiate the release of positive information. Not the CEO I want in charge of my investment.

The job title is CEO and you’ll pocket 30k a month plus options. No further business activity required!

Ianous, someone else made the same point yesterday. My own opinion on it is that if the product is certified as containing Zenakine then the brand would be able to use the claims too. They will have to list the ingredients of the formulation they have used but there is no need for them to shout **ZENAKINE** on any part of their labelling or ingredients. I think if Zenakine is in there on a white label basis the claims would still be valid, holding weight to the current possibility that products are actually out there, or that we won’t actually know when they are.

CP, the contract with Croda in context of what you are talking about is in SBTX’s favour. SBTX can buy the lysate from Croda at a rate at or near cost to produce, which can be used in own brand products or to explore use of the lysate in other sectors. Croda are only entitled to market the lysate for use in cosmetics, for use in any other sector SBTX can obtain the lysate from Croda and sell it to others. Of course I’m sure Croda would ‘want in’ to any other sector, but the overarching point being that yes we could certainly come up with a brand. Dermatonics does have other products other than foot care such as its ‘Dry Skin Cream’, and I’m sure the team would love to get stuck into it. I’d love to hear from Stuart the why’s and wherefore’s of if that has been discussed internally or not.

C/O Toyin on ADVFN Guild: Here are the known beauty-active launches from Sederma (now part of Croda International plc) since 2023:

Mel[O]stem™ – launched March 2023.

BB‑Biont™ – launched February 2023.

Luceane™ – launched December 2023.

Ameyezing 4.0™ – launched February 2024.

Zenakine™ – launched April 2025.

So that gives 5 distinct active ingredients launched by Sederma since 2023.

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Lazily jumping on the back of Toyin’s list of Croda Actives launches and Googling each one to see the released products containing each ingredient, I can’t easily find that any of the above ingredients are listed in any product out on the market. One could say, ‘wow, ingredients launched in early 2023 still aren’t in products, that’s really bad for us’. But I am more intrigued why. Do we think it could be because brands and cosmetics manufacturers don’t want to and will not list what powers their magic potions? Will we ever truly know what products are out there containing Zenakine? Could there be one or more right now?

I would understand the need for a lifetime NDA restricting SBTX from yelling from the rooftops that L’Oreal or Estée Lauder’s new flagship cream is powered by Zenakine; they wouldn’t want Bob’s Cosmetics replicating it in his bathtub laboratory, so I’d give them that. BUT… if it’s never going to be revealed which formulators are using/buying the cream, revealing the sales numbers surely becomes less commercially sensitive than it was before?

Looking at two of TW’s other shares, Eco buildings, also reported on by Alex at Lemmings, is up 85% today at the time of writing, and KEFI, which has secured funding for its gold mine and despite a sell off yesterday is up today by 7%. I am invested in neither. But both have recently released the news that they have been working towards, allowing the market to value them. I write this post partly as a prod at Ashman, come on Stuart, get the information out there! And partly to share hope that as has happened before in SBTX, when the value is revealed, if it is what we believe it is and what SA implies it is at every possible back channel juncture, this could revalue too. Croda dependent, obviously. Some good sleuthing on those numbers recently on this board but it simply doesn’t move the dial like an RNS would.

Singers have set out some possible sales cases in their broker note, therefore I would imagine anything outside of that bracket would force an RNS after a reasonable amount of time. I’d be happy with any of the sales volumes set out in the broker note. Less than would indicate a massive flop and more than would be a huge success for the business and investors. Superdrug have 2 years exclusivity so there is no need for them to try and restrict the release of sales data.

CP, with all due respect, the only steady progress Ashman has made with this business is backwards, averaging nearly a penny a year backwards since he took directorship. Despite raising millions and millions of pounds and diluting shareholders by 50%. As Toyin pointed out earlier, please have a read through the RNS’s since 2019 and then tell us it’s acceptable.

I totally understand if you have invested more recently your outlook will be different, and maybe I’d feel the same if I had invested when you did. But I invested when I heard it from the horses mouth that we were soon to become Wincloves second largest customer and since then my money has been slashed in half, plus time based inflation losses and opportunity cost.

Progress. Balderdash. We’ve had one launch (axis) that led to 400k of stock going in the bin and four years later we have another launch in Croda and we’re not even allowed to know how it’s going. You can’t argue with the experienced investors on facts, but I will say, despite Ashman’s stewardship if you have bought in recently I do believe you will make good money and good luck with it.

CP, as an investor that is generally happy to try and take a balanced view on what is going on in front of me with no grudges, I was p155ed off that Ashman was telling us in 2021 that he was in “advanced discussions with a number of multinationals” regarding cleanbiotix, then to see CIF come out with a first to mass market product 4 years later in 2025. The way Ashman has been operating is at best irritating, at worst negligent to shareholders. Happy to place for millions of pounds, but not able to employ an experienced executive or graduate on 40/50k a year to solely work on spearheading each of these opportunities, which again Ashman has told us is potentially massive. It’s fishy. I’m not writing Ashman off, but he has some explaining to do, because the current situation in all pillars and also the SP show underperformance.

Excellent to hear we now have Axisbiotix on the shelf of a retail supremo like Superdrug. Let us take these successes as they are, inclusion on the shelf of a store in 200 towns up and down the country is some progress and I for one will be celebrating that. It doesn’t change the Croda situation but it certainly changes the Axis situation for the better.

Story of our lives as SBTX shareholders. We can’t even get the best Mark Dixon! 🤣

Great post Disco Dan. I suppose you to be totally correct in that we can assume Dixon knows Zenakine is soon to be launched in products and if he knows more than that, which even though in theory he shouldn’t, it’s still not a bad thing. Let’s hope it all comes out in this last quarter of the year and once it does, Croda lift this NDA that is Ashman’s black cloud. And he celebrates by buying £100k worth of shares! Wouldn’t that be a Christmas gift for long term holders.

They bought a million shares from OPTI, telling OPTI they had a buyer for them, but they didn’t, it was to get them out of trouble.

I think I’ll hold judgement until I know more. Let’s see what Ashman says or does in the upcoming days and weeks. If we see some new developments regarding any of Skinbio’s ‘embarrassment of riches’ then it may open the door for a rebuild of confidence in him. If we don’t, we can make a fair judgement as to what has been occupying his time since the placing, which would be unforgivable.

Top marks to Toyin Elric and Alex, and fair kudos to Josh, who’s reveal almost definitely brought on the TR1 today, imho.

I’m as annoyed as the next mushroom here at the moment, but just been on Instagram (rarely do) and watched a sponsored ad for AxisBiotix which was really endearing and engaging. Well done to the members of our team that produced that. (I did copy a link but the paste function isn’t working on this site.)

So basically just the sound bites from the actual IMC have been posted, probably by IMC themselves. I think another reason the company needs an IR man.

Yes Contender, it’s no surprise he is not doing an IMC after these results have been revealed, which is likely tantamount to another broken promise regarding continuing with quality communication by IMC 6 times per year. You don’t need to be a fly on his office wall to know he will be scrambling for some good news to distract the investor base before he has to answer the detailed questions most investors have got about the make up of the numbers. Which I’ll happily allow if it doubles the share price!

Usually agree with your posts madabout, but not that one.

> Would SBTX be able to get a credible replacement? Absolutely. You could get someone in to lick boots for half of Ashman’s wage, so on anything above half of his package I think there would be several credible candidates, the COO for one.

> Brought us from research to revenue generating with a deal in 2 pillars? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, most people with an entrepreneurial spirit could get that far when they had access to millions and millions of shareholders cash to play monopoly with.

> Company would implode? What a load of rubbish. I think there is a good chance the share price would actually rise on the news. The share price is based on sentiment, and the reason that is so bad is squarely because of Ashman’s management of business communications. Even he cannot deny that. If the situation had been managed better, maybe we would be able to value our shares and one of the two outcomes would be clear; a.) company is not doing as well as Ashman has led us to believe, as per the results, SA should go. b.) we would be happy with the position the company is in, and this conversation would never have happened. Both are on Ashman.

Now that may be the last I say on the matter as whilst I’ve not got a great opinion on the management, I do not wish to become another Bazzaman. However I can’t in good faith not argue the point that the company would be screwed without Ashman, I think that is total nonsense.

Transparency should never fail in a PLC.