Member Info for shychap

The company has stated clearly in the RNS that it has sufficient resources to meet its obligations for at least the next 12 months. I assume they will go into more detail at the IMC event on Monday, following meetings they held last week with all the significant shareholders.

TW trashes SBTX at every opportunity because Ashman called him a liar and because it presumably works as clickbait. He is often petty and misguided but the questions he has posted today are reasonable and they do need answers before we can properly move on.

Thanks for the introduction, Toyin. Not being on Instagram, TikTok, etc, I don't get to meet many pregnant marketing people.

My research suggests that she will receive statutory maternity pay amounting to 90% of her regular pay for up to six weeks; and for the next 33 weeks she would be entitled to £194 per week. But her contract with SBTX may offer a better deal.

Am I misreading it, rebarm? Doesn't it imply that we already have a full-time marketing manager who is taking a year off to have a child? Sadly, I think it's against the law to fire her for that and recruit a full-time replacement…

Apparently still looking to fill this important job on a 12-month assignment. Who is our pregnant marketing manager and do the rules dictate that we have to pay both salaries for 12 months?

https://www.jobijoba.co.uk/detail/92/0892fb38f285e099d52c470066962e49

Please tell me that the mining services firm benefiting from Kefi's $400m contract is not the same "BCM Group Limited" which, according to Companies House, is about to be struck off. Didn't previous RNS's refer simply to "BCM Group"?

MisterPositive, you are quoting old guidance which predates the accounting skulduggery. New and presumably lower guidance will be published soon.

Good on you, greenas1953. You certainly deserve a change of fortune, as do many SBTX PIs.

I hope you were brave/bold/foolhardy enough to average down this year when the opportunities arose in February, March and last week…

Lordloadsoflolly, I could see that it he hadn't mentioned SBTX and PBX, which he didn't need to if your interpretation is correct. Since he did mention them, I'm sticking with what looks to me like the correct interpretation.

You may well be right, ox123; but having secured a hard-to-get listing with a major high street retailer (who must have judged our products to be saleable) I feel we should fully explore its potential before walking away. Superdrug know infinitely more about this market than I do and they don't want products gathering dust on the shelf any more than we do.

Ox123, I assume that is why our products haven't been branded specifically to address psoriasis and acne. I'm not a sufferer but I assume that most of the afflicted would start cheap, possibly with a topical gel and graduate to a more expensive course of treatment when the cheap stuff fails to work. I think too that higher prices can suggest better quality and greater efficacy.

But I do agree with you that young folk don't have much time for powders (unless a parent is administering it) so the promised gummy option would be a welcome addition to the range.

I also feel that we have hardly scratched the surface of social media which is the most effective, and cost-effective, way to reach young sufferers.

The addressable market for skin blemish treatments is huge and we should be able to tap into a significant chunk of casual/impulse buys if our products are visible on the shelves (which they barely were in the early photographs). Our branding – "Skin Clear" and "Skin Calm" – should attract a wide range of customers even without a big advertising spend. First we should see what happens to sales when our products are a) in stock and b) displayed prominently on the shelf.

I'm just saying that the quoted strategy statement implies full divestment. But it's also possible that SOH is simply trying to dress up forced share sales as optional/strategic rather than desperate.

I do know that a major SBTX shareholder was inspired by that statement to make an offer for 5m Opti SBTX shares which was duly accepted. Time will tell who got the better deal.

Lordloadsoflolly, to quote from the Post Period section of the 1/4/26 trading update:

"Strategic shift from building a broad business with holdings in PBX and SBTX and products in multiple territories to focus on high growth areas and commercial sustainability."

This looks to me like a strategy shift to divest the share assets and concentrate the business.

If it's any consolation, Nick2025, only a handful of people would have read the defamation and probably none of them ever thought about it again. It was probably a strategic error to let the perpetrator know you were upset by it…or even that you knew about it. He hates being ignored.

It took more than a "useful idiot" to lobby Ashman to erase the re-election resolutions from the AGM agenda.

With that act of sabotage, the soi-disant PIs' pal exposed his true colours as the CEO's stooge and PIs' enemy. There's no redemption from that.

Cliostock, Hunt has claimed that he had a fraught relationship with Ashman so it's just about possible that he was the prime mover, albeit he would have known that he was responsible for the governance failings. More likely imho, Alyson's appointment was forced upon them by the nomad, possibly under pressure from one or more significant shareholders (although not MD who didn't endorse my activism). For my sins, I too complained to the FRC about Ashman immediately after the 3/7/25 IMC presentation, and I also wrote to the major shareholders to urge them to vote against Ashman's reappointment at the AGM (none of whom replied). I also sent a detailed dossier of governance complaints to the QCA. The AGM fiasco infuriated me, prompting me to complain to AIM Regulation and to Philip Davies at Singer on 5/12/25. I even talked to lawyers about issuing an injunction to stop the AGM taking place. I also sent a dossier to Alyson Levett on 21/12/25, after the announcement that she would be joining the Board on 1 January. I had of course tried to engage with Ashman, Hunt and Bertram on various complaints from June onwards but they did not engage. I remained polite and did not approve of the alleged abuse of Ashman. I acted alone and never in tandem with any other shareholders (nor TW).

I have no idea whether my activism contributed to Ashman's downfall or Hunt's resignation, but it doesn't matter. I am relieved that we can now move forward with a credible new Board, and grateful to whoever brought Alyson Levett in. I am also enthused about the complementary skillset of our new Interim CEO, not least because her predecessor did not inspire me with his creativity or marketing nous.

We were always going to pay a price for the clean-up but I believe that the cost of allowing Ashman to continue to run amok, digging himself into an ever deeper hole and diluting us with alacrity to try to cover up his failings, would have been much higher.

Toyin, I don't think that the matters which were raised by the FRC are the same as the ones allegedly exposed by Bertram which led to Ashman stepping down. And it looks as though the nail in Ashman's coffin - the fake accrual document - was discovered late and not even revealed to Ashman until after he had stepped down.

For sure, TW, and possibly others, would have alerted the company to the FRC issues some time before the FRC sent that letter.

I share your view, mol42. Bertram could and should have raised her concerns to the new head of the Audit committee who had been in place for well over a month before Ashman was suspended for misconduct. It looks to me as though she blew the whistle only after the misconduct charge and only then did the investigation into false accounting ensue.

She was also complicit with Ashman and Hunt (and the Lemming) in turning the AGM into a charade and, for me, they were all members of the self-preservation society. I remain suspicious of her but I also trust the new chairman's judgement so I will live with her decision. It helps that the rest of the accounts were found to be clean and correct. And it also helps that the chairman is a qualified accountant and will now be keeping an eye on everything.

"SOH has explained the more recent SBTX share sale followed a - seemingly unsolicited - approach from a third party."

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SOH advertised in a recent RNS that this year's new strategy was to focus on the core business and divest the SBTX and PBX stockholdings, so he was clearly soliciting buyers.

"The potential is not significant enough to justify a capital raise at or below the current depressed share price."

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A heavily discounted placing would be unwelcome at any share price and I agree that any discretionary cash raise would not look good at the current SP. That said, the BoD has visibility into the future that we don't have and might deem it preferable to raise cash at current levels rather than wait for a significant re-rate. I hope they don't, but if they can get a rapid ROI, it could happen.