Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Bubs is right. I’ve said it before and have been told I’m wrong, but I had 6 boxes of the sachets here, I have a dry skin condition and I’m well invested here, and I just cannot take it as instructed, too much effort and it’s not very appealing. If I could eat a gummy first thing I’d never have missed a day.
Oleric, I just know that in business, the simpler and more accessible you can make the consumption of a product the more people will consume it. This is the root of the difference that the multinationals will offer over our standalone sachets that Psoriasis sufferers don’t know about. The rest is conjecture at this stage, but I maintain that I am tremendously excited about the thought of our product in a chewing gum. SA says it can be done, that’s enough for me at this stage.
Re the acne study, I believe the ideal time for the multinational deal coming through is on completion of the study. We have heard from SA for years now that the way to market this to the teenagers would be in something like chewing gum etc, which is very exciting to hear. If this is the plan it seems to me there is no point in beginning to sell it in sachets under subscription, this is the time for all parties to play their hands.
I’m fairly sure that the commencement of a consumer study would be RNSable as it was when the Psoriasis BRIGHT study began. I am fairly sure this is the next RNS we will get, which is fine because 2-3 months later we can then expect successful results. It also sounds like there could be other news in that period where the study is taking place.
Gary’s article focused on tearing strips off OPTI, I didn’t think he was overly negative about SBTX. However, I’m not even an OPTI investor, let alone a financial journalist, and I was reading it thinking “this man knows nothing about this company”. It was almost like one of those AI written articles that gives figures without understanding any context. Disappointing from that website.
There are some really great people at SBTX, as shown in the link posted by Mol.
Re the acquisition, it was said in a recent RNS that Stuart and Manprit were doing a lot of the due diligence in-house to save the costs of outside lawyers and accountants.
It sounds like the main target company is wanting more money than SA wants to pay and if the Acne comes through soon and the MN’s are happy with the two products to be getting on with it may be more of a distraction than anything.
Anyone notice Geoff Bell is missing from the list now?
Good update from Elric as usual, offering a new layer of prospective. Very happy with my holding here and where the price seems to be heading, with the indications we are getting from the company. SA said something along the lines of ‘you won’t have as long to wait as you think’ re the next acne update, and plenty more in the pipeline after that.
Just need Mol now to post all the words to “The only way is up”…
Hi Simple15, welcome to the board. I’ll take a couple of your questions, someone else might fill in the gaps. Stuart Ashman’s salary; I believe this is an extreme growth period for the company over the past 18 months and the upcoming couple of years, I think it’s worth employing someone that commands that kind of salary. Stuart was previously VP of sales and marketing at Smith and Nephew and took a pay cut to join SBTX. The way he has set up the company to contain 5 pillars to maximise the returns from the potential of the IP has been skilful and so far reasonably executed, but mean he is almost doing the job of 5 CEO’s. Of course it’s usual practice for plc CEO’s to take inflated salaries but Stuart Ashman does provide us with value for money.
Re your IP protection questions, do some research into Dr Cath O’Neill, particularly from when she was CEO before she delegated it to Stuart. It’s not easy to replicate, efficacy depends on very certain amounts of very particular strains of bacteria, which is now protected IP. There is a reason Croda (multi billion pound company) have spent over £5m building a manufacturing plant for our IP and why other multinationals are making approaches. They can’t do it themselves. Don’t underestimate the provenance of our research professionals. We have the best in the world in the skin related microbiome field.
Great interview. You could feel the spark back in SA’s voice, which I believe is because he knows of successes we don’t yet. He seems to allude to it being acne related but he will of course know of what Croda are looking at too.
Aquae, I think it could be. SA talks about there being a possibility of a multinational deal as soon as this calendar year. Could this be why there is an absence of acquisition talk? I’d have preferred it be spoken about, but I remember the acquisition of a company being down to quickly increasing the range of products the company has its IP inside of. It now sounds as if a multinational has expressed that PS and an Acne product would be enough to sign the deal. Very interesting time indeed.
TW has said he came away feeling comforted, which I think is good. I have some pre-interview estimations. I think SA will feel particularly burnt by the SP decline since the bright study heights of 88p, and I feel he has been subdued since, as if his confidence has taken a knock. I think this will come across as SA seeming cautious in the interview, I don’t think we’ll hear his passionate enthusiasm until he has finally ticked one of his pillars off. I think that’s when he’ll come back out fighting. If the interview shows we are edging closer to one or more of the pillar checkpoints we are waiting for them I’m happy for now, remembering we were told to expect multiple new events by the end of the year and we are now well into the third quarter.
It was a good instinct Elrico, well done. I feel like the little climb we have had recently combined with OPTI finishing their selling and the prospect of upcoming news turns the sentiment about SBTX positive and I look forward to the next few weeks. I also look forward to the TW interview with SA.
Nick certainly has a point; if 80p came off the back of the market expecting 25k subscribers, what should the SP be based off the expectation of a large multinational running with a suite of products and/or integration with current products. More than 80p that’s for sure, especially when you add in ‘Croda the imminent’.
Regarding the PR, it is a shame that it dried up at SBTX over the past 18 months, and some of what has come has been in reaction to SP decline which is firefighting more than promotion. I’d like to think it’s because SA has been busy. That being the case there should be some upcoming news to use as a basis for plenty of good PR for our shares and the company did say as much in the last RNS.