Member Info for shychap

Farris, for the definitive version of what's in my head, you could try referring to the soi-disant psycho-babbler. But I can assure you that plenty has changed. When I decided to invest here, I first made sure that Ashman was willing to engage and that he seemed to handle shareholders' questions transparently and honestly. I also bought into a company which claimed to have adopted the QCA Governance Code. Indeed, for months afterwards, I was defending him against certain posters on this forum who were critical of him.

But, for no good reason, that has all changed over the past year and SBTX governance is no longer what I paid for.

Sharecast: "Housebuilder Vistry was also in the red as it reiterated full-year guidance despite Budget uncertainty weighing on private house sales in the second half. Updating on trading in the year to December end, Vistry confirmed adjusted pre-tax profits were on track to come in around £270m, up from last year's £263.5m and in line with expectations.

Revenues, however, were broadly unchanged at £4.2bn, after the total average selling price rose 3% to £282,000 but completions fell 9% to 15,700.

Vistry said the slowdown in sales reflected "uncertainty driven by the Budget, causing a more subdued market in the third quarter and the first half of the fourth quarter".

Standard practice with that lot to fabricate nonsense to give them something to write about. And they would rather post any old drivel than discuss the facts of the governance complaints.

Tinysweeper, I doubt that the IIs are aware of Ashman's war on PIs. Until the AGM shambles, it wouldn't have affected them. But the self-preserving trickery of changing the AGM agenda a week into voting on the original re-election resolutions won't have escaped their attention, and it must have made shareholders large and small concerned about the Board's competence, motives and governance.

"I get it you are unhappy about SA,s management of a company you say you are invested in, so please cut and run and invest in a company whose CEO meets your high standards and let the rest of us “suffer” SA in relative silence."

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But that's not how I roll, pompeygs. I bought into SBTX for Zenakine and I'm staying for Zenakine. I meanwhile demand that my company is properly run and will continue to lobby for that. I don't give up. You'll find out soon enough that I have only just begun. If our BoD don't show us very soon that they have changed their ways and restored accountability, I intend to appeal for help to our major shareholders. And if that doesn't do the trick, I'll be complaining to my MP, government ministers and the City of London Corporation. Next, I'll be writing up this disastrous example of corporate governance for the proper media. After that, it'll be demonstrations in Newcastle and every other tactic in the activists' playbook.

It might not help the SP much in the short term but it should hopefully pay off big-time for shareholders in the medium term.

Alternatively, our BoD could behave properly right now, forget the arrogance and start earning some trust and respect. No more shareholder abuse. No more contempt. No more desperate self-preservation tricks. No more lies. Unless you're a day trader who couldn't care less, these things really matter – especially in a growing company hoping to do more business with large, ethics-conscious customers. For this company to deliver on all its potential, it urgently needs new governance policies. And asking nicely hasn't done the trick.

I'll be sure to keep you posted.

The SP won't hold onto any gains until Ashman delivers something factual and substantial to cement the bricks together. The only new substance in the past month has been the first sighting of Zenakine in the wild, but even that was expected so not material. Ashman's latest Q&A isn't substantial either. Even a new independent chair of the Audit Committee isn't material since the previous chair was well qualified to do that job. The FY results were also flagged up well in advance and contained nothing to excite investors.

And if you imagine that talking about who is filtering who is more interesting than SBTX governance then your slip is showing.

Tinysweeper, I applaud your plan to filter me and would recommend it to others who don't want to discuss the unresolved governance of SBTX.

It is undeniably true that Bazzaman and I have never been spotted in the same room together…and we probably both hope that it never happens.

PGlancy, your re-post merely confirms the accuracy of the extracts I have previously quoted. But are you implying that the Eldric/Alex advice to Ashman to delete the re-election resolutions was just a "spot of sport"? Or are you suggesting that those two shareholder champions actually _didn't_ so advise Ashman but falsely claimed to have done so just to rile me?

To be clear, the big issue here is Ashman's decision to delete the re-election resolutions from the AGM agenda. The advice to him from Eldric and Alex – which, based on your quoted article, clearly _did_ happen – is of minor importance except to demolish whatever credibility those Lemmings may have had.

Bazzao, with nonsense like "we know TW is pulling your strings", you force me to reply. You and other apologists just like to make stuff up in order to extend these discussions. Try dealing in facts and the conversation would be much shorter.

In case it helps, I offer to donate £50k of SBTX share sale proceeds to any charity you care to name if you can produce any proof of your mischievous allegation – or that I have even spoken to the man.

Desperate to stifle criticism of traitors, Eldric and Ashman, the Lemming's deluded foot soldiers – kitchentowel, beluga whale, et al – have clearly been despatched to this forum in the past few weeks with instructions to flood it with repetitive spam every few minutes.

Self-styled "vindictive prat" Eldric, who thought it was OK to advise Ashman to delete the re-election resolutions from the AGM agenda, said he "couldn't care less" about the resulting shareholder flak. But he's squealing like a stuck pig and iridescent with faux-indignation – while telling us ad nauseam how grateful we should be to him for delivering his "insights" into Ashman's often misleading spin.

The longer he protests, the further away we seem to be getting from fixing the governance damage inflicted on us by the SBTX directors.

UK housebuilder Persimmon said it expected annual earnings to be at the upper end of forecasts after a bigger-than-expected rise in home completions. It added that the start to 2026 had been "encouraging" after a Boxing Day marketing campaign against a challenging market.Completions for calendar 2025 rose 12% to 11,905, with average selling prices up 4%. Persimmon is guiding for underlying profit before tax of £415m to £440m, according to a company compiled estimate.

Obsisian, I am not surprised that neither you nor Elric now wants to talk about the AGM: Elric and Alex's betrayal of shareholders is indefensible so nothing to be gained and more to be lost by trying to defend their treachery.

But desperate though y'all may be to shut the topic down, it's not going away. Only in your twisted playbook do shareholders forgive and forget such blatant contempt. And, having conspired to avoid accountability to the company's owners, our chairman and CEO may never recover from it. Having lost trust and respect, they are on borrowed time.

"Shychap, you appear to have mistaken me for a halfwit"

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You're being a bit harsh on yourself there, Obsisian.

"You neatly sidestepped the central issue: namely, the call for you to provide actual receipts to substantiate your claims of historic “misinformation.”"

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Not my style to sidestep anything, Obsisian. I simply concluded that you were jesting since pretty much everyone else has complained at some point about Ashman's misleading BS via the Lemming channel, so chose not to waste any of my time flying your kite.

"The turnout was minimal, judging by the vote count, which you’ve attempted to spin with the finesse of a career politician."

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You are confusing turnout with vote count. Turnout was indeed minimal, as intended by the Board, with just three intrepid souls turning up. The vote count included CREST and proxy votes and totalled some 105m which, while well below the shares in issue (as is common), isn't minimal. The percentages of total votes cast are published in the RNS and are always calculated in the same way, like the Brexit vote. No assumption can safely be made about the opinion of non-voters so they are excluded.

"Unlike you, I actually spoke to Elric (Alex didn’t respond) to get the facts. He confirmed he raised the idea with Mr Ashman during a call, suggesting improvements in investor communications. He also made it abundantly clear that implementing such a move would be terrible optics — an explicit warning, not a rallying cry."

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No need to rewrite history since Elric has fessed up in writing. Of course, he, Ashman and anyone else would have known that the optics of deleting the re-election resolutions would be very bad but his advice was to go ahead and do it anyway and take the hit. Of course, Ashman, Elric, and the merry band of Lemmings are indeed now taking a hit from shareholders including me. Y'all can pretend to be shocked if you like but Elric and Ashman saw it coming because they knew that this desperate/stupid plan would rightly be seen as treachery and a betrayal of the shareholders who Elric pretends to champion.

"I’ve yet to see anyone rallying to support your Mr Winnifrith–esque rhetoric. Tell me — is he paying you to undermine the so-called ‘rodents’?"

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No. I don't collude with anyone. Elric is obviously more than capable of shooting himself in the foot. His AGM subterfuge tactic has been repeated since with his petty re-locking of his sycophantic SBTX epistles – just to target me. He behaves like a petulant, self-serving child…while pretending to be on the side of shareholders. Nonetheless, I am confident that, before long, the gates will be unlocked again because Ashman needs to prove that he is engaging with the great unwashed and not just a handful of Lemming subscribers.

"Shychap, not sure if you saw my question? Which of your governance complaints has been upheld by any official body?"

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Can't help you with that, Bubs49. Complaints to regulators can take weeks/months to investigate and there is never any feedback to the whistleblower.

Because Ashman told us SBTX had received payment/s from Croda before April so last year's assumed £750k revenue could have come in over many months. And because Singer's Zenakine revenues projection graph indicates sub-£1m Croda revenue in 2026.

£10 seems too cheap for our wonder ingredient. But supposedly a range of products coming…and maybe a good thing if it's affordable to the masses. Scandia pay the same price for Zenakine as any other house so mass market volume would be ker-ching time.

Polish cosmetics house, Scandia Cosmetics has launched a new range of "Morpheus" branded neurocosmetics based on Zenakine:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/scandia-cosmetics-sa_scandiacosmetics-privatelabelcosmetics-activity-7415335731516145664-gQpM/?originalSubdomain=pl

Scandia have some distribution throughout Europe with current lines being affordable (£5–50) so it will be interesting to see how Morpheus is priced.

https://makeup.uk/brand/949608/

Lift off! Bring on the VIPs!

"whilst I am not expecting early fireworks from the Superdrug launch, it is worth bearing in mind that Singer in their Broker note using a low estimate forecast sales of 3 boxes of axisbiotix-ac and 3 boxes of axisbiotix-ps per week at £30 per box in each of the 200 Stores rolled out in phase 1."

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AquaeSulis01, have you allowed for the fact that all of the initial Superdrug stocking order would have been recognised as revenue once it had been delivered? Weekly Superdrug sales to their customers would presumably be irrelevant to SBTX HY26 results unless there were some surprisingly rapid restocking orders. We can only guess at the quantum of the initial order of course without knowing what depth of warehouse stock was included…and we don't know the trade price, but would it be reasonable to assume an initial order of £100k if trade price were, say, £15 per box?

Toyin, finger in the wind but I think £1.6m (same as HY24) + £1.5m (slippage from Q4) + £0.2m (SD) + £0.4m (Croda) = £3.7m …and no upgrade to the £6.2m FY26 forecast. Not expecting much from SD obviously and prepared for slow progress on Croda, as per Singer revenue projections.

"Shychap, if you're referring to so-called "mischief-making" by Elrico’s son, Alex, then it seems you’ve rather missed the point. It was quite clearly a tongue-in-cheek jab aimed at Mr Winnifrith — hardly the stuff of betrayal. But let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that it wasn’t mere mischief. Perhaps the suggestion that the board should not stand for re-election was, in fact, a serious and considered opinion. Are we now classifying differing views as unworthy of being voiced?"

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Obsisian, you could help your cause if you stopped taking us for fools. Lemming Jnr obviously wasn't joking on 4/12/25 when he wrote: "I have suggested to CEO Stuart Ashman on multiple occasions to frustrate the activist group by not putting anyone forward for re-election this year."

And Eldric wasn't joking either when he added: "Alex isn’t wasting his time. His suggestion—one I fully support—isn’t without purpose. It’s designed, quite deliberately, to frustrate the likes of Simon Chapman and his small battalion of PI's (Whatever), who seem to believe they speak for the majority of shareholders…what exactly would a vote against the Chairman and CEO accomplish? Certainly nothing transformative. So yes, I agree with Alex—though mainly because I fancied wearing the cloak of a vindictive prat for a change. I’ve no doubt this will irritate a few people, and I’ll probably be banished to Coventry for an extended period. Frankly, I couldn’t care less."

The whole family is so misguided that it defies belief. The only purpose of an AGM is to hold management accountable to their shareholders – and every shareholder has a right to vote against the directors if they want to. Moreover, SBTX claims to adhere to the QCA Code so must be held accountable on that score too.

The Lemming rhetoric is straight out of the twisted Ashman playbook, namely a clearly stated aim to deny 99.99% of shareholders their rights in order to prevent one or maybe two known adversaries holding the directors to account.

This Lemming appeal was so obviously detrimental to shareholders, their rights and to corporate governance that it seems impossible that they would own up to it. But they did own up – apparently with pride.

The deluded fools couldn't even see the damage they were doing to themselves. How can unaffiliated shareholders (ie the vast majority) trust the Lemmings ever again to represent their interests? It's clear for all to see that the Lemmings will do anything in desperation to try to protect their golden goose, Ashman – even if it hurts/disempowers all shareholders.

As may now be obvious to them, this kind of sabotage can backfire. An unusually high near-20% of the AGM votes cast were against several of the bog standard resolutions in protest. That's over 20m protest votes. How proud are the Lemmings now? Answer: they don't care because their mission was to protect Ashman at any cost.