Member Info for Natdan

Good to see this share begin to crawl its way, inch by perilous inch, from out the abyss, as it heads to the dizzy heights of its recent disastrous money-raise price.
It takes a special kind of CEO to oversee such a stellar share performance, tracking it from a retrospectively stable price in the high teens or low twenties, all the way down to barely a third of a dime.
It is even more dynamic of him to take the vow of silence of the Trappist monk, failing to update or even properly explain the sudden necessity to raise cash before Christmas to stay afloat. As for the chairman, it seems to have all the makings of a serious dereliction of duty when a failed CEO remains in post as if it is business as usual.
Stability is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

I look forward to seeing to what extent the remuneration committee (if such truly exists here) will flex its mighty muscles to rein in LR’s earnings. After all if his delivery to date was to be reflected in his take-home, then he would be reimbursing the company. Employed for gratis.

Also, what an inspirational decision it was for AR to depart the chairmanship helm when he did, free to pursue his dapper-spiv image within the City. Surely he couldn’t have had an inkling that things were about to implode? How very dare anyone suggest such a thought?

Note no time-scale for when the supposed synergies of a single premises will kick in. It has the distinct feel of a race to the bottom- will the Co. still be trading by the time the attack on the ‘cost base’ has been concluded? How wisely is the recent money-raise being spent? And how much of it will be used to prop up the CEO with the wage he has been accustomed to? Not to mention BH and did he leave peacefully without having a wedge of cash shoved quietly his way to hasten his exit? Questions yet to be answered….

21 December 2022 was the darkest day in this company’s nascent history.
More than three long months further down the tracks and investors still clinging on are none the wiser as to the company’s prospects of survival or otherwise.
It is nothing short of scandalous that the CEO has firstly remained totally silent on any sense of direction and, secondly, is still in post.
A shameful set of circumstances.

Davand, sympathy with the devil is misplaced at this time. The only reasons for retaining a CEO who has presided over such a catastrophic destruction of shareholder value are because employment law protects the employer to a certain extent, he is pulling a wage wholly non-commensurate with performance to date, a supine chairman and he probably retains business contacts which might not quickly be replaced. Oh, and he needs time to update his c.v.

Maybe a positive sign for once, instead of being what appears to have been a numbers game for management as a status symbol.

When we have a CEO who has gone totally mute on the company for whose investors he is primarily meant to deliver shareholder value to (unless obligated to do so by regulatory requirement), then this is the residue we are left with.
New HQ (shiny offices?), a salary last quoted worth three prime ministers combined, and so the name of the game now seems to be to stay in post as long as the ship can stay afloat.
Radio silence, cap’n, approaching choppy waters again?

It is difficult to fathom why no Institutional Investor, having taken a position here and presumably suffered significant paper-losses, has agitated and brought about management transformation. Do they never retain fire in the belly anymore, or is the company now just too small to save?
The BOD has been nominally streamlined and the CFO has belatedly been made to walk, although he retains a zombie-like presence as he waits to impart the working best practices to his eventual successor.
A chairman who has been virtually silent fails to inspire.
The big elephant in the room is the CEO who, having been in command whilst the SP crashed and all but burned, remains in situ. Why? And for how long? Even as the SP struggles to keep its head above the placing price, please someone within the company tell us what on earth is going on.

Of course the possibility remains they may be struggling to find a buyer at anything like a decent price. Unless a potential purchaser is already based in Taiwan, why take on the extra risk of having your business potentially wiped one day by the Chinese megalomaniac?
Singapore seems a safer bet, where Ygen is already based I do believe.

And so the average-downer bore reappears. After a couple of months of relative tranquility (and treatment?) he cannot resist walking his trading history down again, from 16p to near-zero.
He struggles with basic comprehension:- nobody is remotely interested.

Yes twix is “eternally thankful” that the Ygen management destroyed his capital -in all likelihood never recoverable. He displays the same obsessive compulsion as the slot-machine addict in a backstreet seaside amusement arcade, but fails to see the joke is on him. Only nobody’s laughing anymore.

Probably a cartful equivalent of twix’s shares….at all prices from 16p downwards.

I expect LR will have dug in and would have no intention of leaving voluntarily. After all, who would admit failure on the one hand while still pulling his near £400k pa salary? May as well keep the ball rolling for as long as possible.
He may well be able to point to satisfying most of the parameters set by the last remuneration committee, most likely the misleading boast of delivering over a 100 products to market and recruiting a workforce in excess of 200. Both are now redundant, just as the CEO should now be if common decency was still a uniform management quality.
I predict he will depart only on receipt of a generous compensation package.
If I am incorrect LR, then put the record straight.

As Churchill might have ventured: “Never in the history of human genomics has so much been owed by so few to so many…”

So one barnacle has belatedly been prized away from the generous salary on which it has fed for so long. Big barnacle has to now be persuaded to depart likewise, subject to the proviso of NO severance package.
It is indicative of how far this company has fallen that today’s news has the same feel as a major contractual win!

Davand am happy to accept that if it is in writing. I would have thought that ‘perk’ would not be disclosable due to business confidentiality perhaps.

I just wonder how the attack on the cost base is going, 3 months on from the money-raise.
I note from the last annual report the decision to move under one roof in Manchester is costing as they admit they have residual leases to pay-off. At what cost and for how long is unspecified.
Such largesse from a CEO and bean-counter sees no shame within a loss-making company.

Having not the slightest modicum of shame or embarrassment, why would the CEO and abacus operator stand-down? For as long as the Co. is prepared to pay their modest combined annual salary of £650k, they will remain in situ.
Problem is with employment law caveats, it would probably cost more to get rid. Surely the IIs and chairman cannot possibly believe they will dig us out this ‘ole?

The first piece of nimble footwork evidenced by the LR and BH dream-ticket in many a long period of trading. After all, it’s not often you get the chance to destroy shareholder value by 90%+ but preserve money already loaned to you. They should be proud of the fact we pay £650k+ to the pair annually.
Remuneration committee, any chance of a raise at the next meeting?

I suspect the reason why LR and his abacus-using bean-counter BH remain in post is because of the restrictions placed by Employment legislation in removing underperforming employees. Unless gross negligence is evident, opportunities must usually be first provided to give said employee opportunity to improve etc.
LR has in all likelihood built up a decent amount of contacts which might also have made it difficult and expensive to replace.
Aided and abetted by a chairman who has been hideously conspicuous by his silence, what’s not to like?
I expect there is an element of complete shamelessness whereby LR and BH are determined to continue to pull their wage for as long as the lights at HQ remain on.
Trebles all round.