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I am pleased to see that Mr Winnifrith has, rather suddenly, discovered the charms of reasonable logic and accepted that SkinBio cannot publish the FRP in full. That is especially the case if, as I hope, Mr Ashman’s conduct is now subject to police investigation. Publishing the report in full could prove prejudicial, and may also compromise efforts to claw back funds under specific policies.

On a separate point, while Mr Winnifrith continues to hammer home the fear-porn narrative around highly dilutive fundraises, he appears oddly perplexed as to why the company has not issued an updated forecast. There may be a perfectly simple explanation — or indeed two.

First, it is entirely possible that the company is already in negotiations over the terms and conditions of a fundraise. Secondly, in my view, it may be awaiting royalty figures from Croda, which could result in some of the £700k accrual being reversed, assuming the signed contractual obligations referenced in the RNS have been met.

I wonder why the latter has not featured in Mr Winnifriths' analysis. We all know why. He needs to be proven correct at all costs, just not his.

Tyndall I hear have had a rough time of it lately.

Perhaps Mr Winnifrith might consider distributing a few samples to his subscribers. Ah, no — forgive me, silly thought. That would rather interfere with the indispensable hysteria upon which his narrative, and indeed his carefully cultivated sense of victimhood, appears to depend.

That said, given the needless stress he seems capable of inflicting on some of his readers, they may very well benefit from a little Zenakine. Or is it Zetakine? It must be the latter, naturally — because Mr Winnifrith, as we all know, is never wrong.

Perhaps Mr Winnifrith might consider distributing a few samples to his subscribers. Ah, no — forgive me, silly thought. That would rather interfere with the indispensable hysteria upon which his narrative, and indeed his carefully cultivated sense of victimhood, appears to depend.

That said, given the needless stress he seems capable of inflicting on some of his readers, they may very well benefit from a little Zenakine. Or is it Zetakine? It must be the latter, naturally — because Mr Winnifrith, as we all know, is never wrong.

Shychap,

98% agree with you, until you state 'Superdrug trial isn’t going well.' Based on Mr Winnifriths' flawed analysis? Superdrug hardly had time to contribute in the period. 188 stores isn't a trial, it's a staged launch, which may or may not succeed, that is mostly on Superdrug.

'I always thought that was the case as quite frankly this stock is a poor investment compared to whats available on the market.' Such as INSG AI?

Net,

You are trying to reject the idea of psychological involvement by presenting as detached, experienced, diversified and emotionally robust: “I hold twenty stocks, I know AIM is a gamble, I never really believed anyway.” That is a recognisable defence mechanism. It is the language of someone attempting to convert uncertainty, disappointment and possible loss into a pre-existing rule of life: “That is AIM.”

I am not suggesting that every retail investor is sitting in a darkened room, clutching a framed photograph of Zenakine and whispering “why, Croda, why?” Most private investors in AIM shares understand perfectly well that these are high-risk situations. Many hold a basket of speculative stocks. Many know that oil, pharma, biotech and micro-cap shares often disappoint. That is not really in dispute, so why bring it up! Rhetorical, BWTW.

But knowing something is risky is not the same as being indifferent to what happens. You missed several points in a rush to critique something you do not understand, that much is obvious.

Investor psychology is not simply about whether someone “believes” in a company like a religious convert. It is about how people process uncertainty, loss, ambiguity, trust, control and disappointment. How did this basic fact pass you by! Rhetorical.

If I buy a high-risk AIM stock, I accept that a product(s) may fail, the market may not develop, sales may disappoint, cash may run short, or the share price may fall. That is commercial risk. That is part of the game. "That is AIM", indeed, any investment!

What is different is when the issue becomes one of unclear communication, disputed revenue recognition, suspension, governance questions, or uncertainty around what has actually happened. That is not just “horse number 3 lost the race”. That is more like wondering whether the race was described properly in the first place or raced at the wrong meet. Diversification also does not remove the issue. Having twenty stocks may reduce the financial impact of one failure, but it does not remove frustration, mistrust or anger when one holding becomes suspended or when a company’s previous reporting is called into question. A diversified investor can still feel misled. A cynical investor can still feel annoyed. You simply do not understand your own strategy, and have demonstrated you have not fundamental understanding between portfolio management, and investor/market psychology. I do, on both counts.

I suggest you read - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It is particularly good on the human habit of mistaking post-event cynicism for pre-event rationality.

SkinBioTherapeutics Plc is facing not only a financial and governance issue, but a psychological crisis of trust among private investors.

The uncertainty surrounding the Croda partnership, the launch of Zenakine, and the disputed royalty accrual has created a damaging ambiguity. Zenakine appears to be real, launched and commercially positioned by Croda, yet the reversal of accrued royalty income has left shareholders struggling to reconcile product validation with accounting failure.

From a psychological perspective, private investors are no longer simply assessing valuation. They are trying to regain control after a period of uncertainty, suspension and perceived informational imbalance. Many will feel trapped, anxious, frustrated or betrayed. When trading resumes, the market reaction may therefore be driven as much by emotional release as by rational analysis.

The central issue is trust. Investors need the new board structure to communicate clearly, directly and authoritatively. It must explain what happened, what did not happen, how the Croda-related ambiguity should be understood, and what controls are now in place. The board cannot rely on third-party commentators, including Father and Son at Lemming Investor, to interpret or soften the message for shareholders.

There are, as yet, few visible signposts that communication will materially improve. The investigation may be complete and remedial actions may be promised, but private investors need evidence of cultural and governance change, not merely process.

The board has one opportunity to get the message right. It must separate Croda’s commercial potential from the accounting error, avoid over-reassurance, and speak with precision, humility and authority. When trading recommences, shareholders will not just be pricing SkinBioTherapeutics’ assets or prospects. They will be pricing whether they believe the board can restore trust.

In full https://open.substack.com/pub/psychological4investors/p/skinbiotherapeutics-plc-017?r=5eb7sb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Ask Elric. At least he seems prepared to arrange it without lining his own pockets.

Lemmings are beginning to speculate that this was not a single misstep, but a cascade of failures. More heads will surely roll — many would argue starting with the CFO, the Chair, and the auditors. More troubling still is Elric’s speculation over the true purpose behind the £4.2 million funding secured in June.

He also has an offer to anyone wanting the Zenakine products.

Both will be posted concurrently.

It is highly likely that the FRP flagged this as an administrative burden, NOT addresses when it should have been at the time. It is clearly an historic charge connected to BTS.

It reflects a troubling lack of authority at the executive level. Permitting the notion that something more substantive remains to emerge only reinforces the impression that the board has ceded control. The FRP report was expected to be finalised and released in March; its delay does little to inspire confidence. Attention now turns to Mr Hunt, whose resignation feels increasingly inevitable—and, frankly, overdue. More broadly, the principal shareholders seem to have lost their ability to exert meaningful discipline.

Regrettably, I no longer have the facility to respond directly on Lemming, though I have reviewed your research with considerable interest. Your analysis is impressively incisive—arguably the most lucid interpretation of the science I’ve encountered thus far.

What is particularly compelling is the apparent validation of your observations by the Croda employee within the Lemming comments—always reassuring when theory and insider perspective shake hands rather than glare at one another across the room.

As Alex quite sensibly notes, the strategy of launching a new active ingredient under the umbrella of a well-established, globally trusted brand is not merely logical, but commercially astute. Brand loyalty, once earned, is a formidable ally—something the Croda representative all but confirmed in yesterday’s discussion.

Excellent work, Asqueasulis. Thorough, thoughtful, and rather difficult to fault. Thank you.

Shychap, how much influence do you imagine 36 subscribers really wield? The grand conspiracy you’re hinting at sounds less like sober analysis and more like the sort of thinking one picks up after prolonged exposure to Mr Winnifrith’s rather well-polished narrative of victimhood and martyrdom.

There is also an irony here that’s difficult to ignore. Mr Winnifrith has made a career out of delivering robust—often scathing—opinions about boards of directors and the individuals who sit on them. Yet when a comparatively obscure voice offers an opinion about him, suddenly the tone shifts from “fair comment” to something approaching outrage. One might think that someone so fond of dishing out criticism would possess a slightly thicker skin when it comes back the other way.

Are you paid to support him?

I wasn't wrong. You're back here after the pump on INSG failed.

Shychap, you appear more troubled by my opinion than by the attacks against Mr Winnifrith. Let me be clear: I have no doubt he was targeted, and I neither support nor excuse that sort of reprehensible behaviour.

That said, it is perfectly obvious to anyone not wearing the club tie and monocle that Mr Winnifrith has rather enthusiastically cast himself as the maître d’ of the affair. True to form, he seems intent on leaning heavily into the narrative—his mother’s death included—as part of the wider drama. One can’t help noticing the steady stream of articles since the original incident. As I suggested before, he appears determined to extract every last drop of mileage from it, which, if anything, rather vindicates my earlier observations.

My opinion remains unchanged, irrespective of what ShareSoc might say. In fact, their intervention looks suspiciously like an attempt to catch the slipstream of the publicity—much the same way Mr Winnifrith seems keen to mobilise readers and funnel attention through the mainstream media to bolster his reach.

Let us also not pretend this is the first time Mr Winnifrith has found himself at the centre of such melodrama. If memory serves, there was previously the alleged DDoS attack on the site, along with those ominous “death threats” that were said to be circulating about the place. One might almost feel sorry for the poor soul.

Cry me a river, cry wolf, whatever suits.

PS. I was not paid to write my opinion.

Oh dear, the Winnifrith exposé — surely destined to be remembered as one of the more elaborate exercises in modern financial PR. It has everything: drama, persecution, martyrdom, and a carefully curated sense of victimhood. All, in my opinion, designed to rally the faithful, mobilise the commentariat, and — perhaps most importantly — catch the eye of the mainstream media. After all, nothing drives readership quite like a good siege narrative, and readership, as we know, ultimately converts into pounds, shillings and pence.

Now, most seasoned observers understand that Tom Winnifrith has long had a rather theatrical relationship with the truth, often embellishing and exaggerating where a dull fact might otherwise suffice. That said, I do not for a moment doubt that he has attracted hostility from some deeply unsavoury and morally questionable characters. The darker corners of the market are not exactly populated by choirboys.

However, the threats purported to be existential often read less like credible plots and more like the usual online bravado — the sort of contemptuous bluster that flourishes on the internet but rarely translates into anything resembling real-world action. In other words, unpleasant, certainly, but hardly the stuff of a political thriller.

Still, this is precisely the territory in which Winnifrith tends to thrive: controversy as oxygen, conflict as content, and victimhood as a rather effective marketing strategy.

And, lest we forget, he accused me of being a paid hack while preparing this drama, apparently a willing participant in whatever grand conspiracy happened to be occupying his imagination that week. One assumes I was cast as a minor villain in the drama — though regrettably nobody seems to have informed me where to send the invoice.

Winnifrith is a drama Queen.

AquaeSulis, Alex would concur. He has advanced a broadly similar explanation to account for the fiscal discrepancy you have identified.

My suspicion — and it is no more than that at this stage — is that the review will expose structural and timing complexities which have produced something of a reporting labyrinth, rather than anything more sinister. Commercial licensing arrangements, especially those layered with confidentiality provisions and inter-company reporting obligations, are rarely linear. They are often administratively awkward long before they are improper.

I would very much hope that, should the findings bear this out, SkinBioTherapeutics takes a suitably robust stance against any unfounded allegations of fraud. Markets are volatile enough without imaginative embellishment masquerading as analysis.

In short: complexity is inconvenient; misconduct is something else entirely. One hopes the distinction will shortly be made plain.

https://open.substack.com/pub/psychological4investors/p/skinbiotherapeutics-plc-84b?r=5eb7sb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true