Member Info for shychap

Obsisian, PIs obviously want to know about the Croda royalties but they are irrelevant to my main complaints about Ashman and the Board. Hopefully the corporate governance failings, the neglect of shareholders and the sleight-of-hand over revenue forecasts including the missing downgrade RNS did get discussed.

Bazzaman, you have been exceedingly tedious and boring on the subject of Ashman – but without having any impact on the share price. I haven't seen/heard the Q&A but it sounds like Ashman is doing the usual mea culpa non est trick by blaming his mis-steps on other people.

TW presumably did impact the SP lately but his complaints about the BoD are valid so the real blame again lies at Ashman's door.

Toyin, he was definitely a sizeable shareholder with around 5m shares. He dumped 4m in a knee-jerk over-reaction to the ZeroHedge story on the dangers of artificial melatonin – which he regretted at the time but probably doesn't now. I don't know if he still holds the balance.

Letitrun, if you read my posting history here you will see where I'm coming from so I won't repeat my long list of charges now. But although I have complained to Ashman directly and on two occasions reported him to the regulators, I am always civil. I don't approve of abusiveness from anyone, including TW. But that's his style when he perceives malpractice or incompetence and imho he does far more good than harm since the regulators are ineffective left to their own devices.

But however disgruntled Ashman & Co may be at the criticisms, and abuse, levelled at the Board over the past six months, they are 100% wrong to disengage and run for cover when they are paid to communicate with shareholders. There is no place for such childish and arrogant petulance in a public company boardroom – especially when it is their misguided actions which have provoked most of the complaints.

I agree that it's unlikely that the resolutions to re-elect Ashman and Hunt will be defeated but if there is a significant number of votes against then that would be enough to convince some directors to resign, or their Boards to take action. In any event, every shareholder has a right to express his dissatisfaction and a right to vote, whether you agree with them or not. They are not the ones damaging sentiment: Ashman and Hunt have done that.

Letitrun, I agree with you that the business is poised to grow but I am not comfortable being misled, insulted and ignored by Ashman & Co going forward so, as is my right, I will be voting against their re-election. I believe that the company will perform better with a professional team at the helm.

One small victory for the good guys. AGM Resolutions:

TO RECEIVE THE ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 

TO REAPPOINT GRAVITA AUDIT LIMITED AS AUDITORS OF THE COMPANY

TO AUTHORISE THE DIRECTORS TO FIX THE AUDITORS REMUNERATION

TO REELECT STUART ASHMAN AS A DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY 

TO REELECT MARTIN HUNT AS A DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY 

TO REELECT DR CATHERINE PRESCOTT AS A DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY 

TO REELECT DANIELLE BEKKER AS A DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY

TO AUTHORISE THE DIRECTORS TO ALLOT SECURITIES UP TO AN AGGREGATE NOMINAL AMOUNT OF 862598.21GBP 

TO PROVIDE THE DIRECTORS WITH LIMITED AUTHORITY TO ALLOT EQUITY SECURITIES FOR CASH ON A NON PRE EMPTIVE BASIS IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 570 OF THE COMPANIES ACT 06

TO PROVIDE DIRECTORS WITH LIMITED AUTHORITY TO ALLOT SECURITIES ON A NON PRE EMPTIVE BASIS IN ACCORDANCE WITH SEC 570 OF COMPANIES ACT 06 PROCEEDS ARE USED FOR FINANCING

They will already have an agreed list of questions, after Ashman crossed out the ones he wasn't willing to discuss.

TW sold today. Perceived financial irregularities and dire corporate governance too much to take. Claims the final straw was received intelligence that the COO did not resign due to poor health.

AquaeSulis01, your argument supposes that punters buying at 17p had no expectation of any Croda revenues. My argument is that every punter had some Croda expectation so, however inaccurately or haphazardly, Croda expectation was built into the 17p share price because we all knew something was coming. What we didn't know was that the UM riches were not coming.

Twrchtrwyth, you are better off than you would have been had you done nothing, so that qualifies as a smart move. I too would be buying today (despite my dissatisfaction with the Board) if I hadn't recently topped up at 14.1p.

AquaeSulis01, there was never any guidance on the Croda revenue, hence the range of uninformed opinions as low as £100k and as high as £1m+, but it was factored into the share price as a known unknown. Meanwhile the guidance on UM was fairly clear so that too would have been factored in. They can't cancel each other out because they were both in play at the time of the fundraise.

Ox123, I suspect that the PIs making the most noise are the ones who are holding firm, and possibly adding. It's the ones who suddenly go quiet you have to watch.

AquaeSulis01, Ashman was happily citing the UM sales traction back in March so it doesn't seem credible that a miss of that size could have caught them by surprise at the end of June.

AquaeSulis01, very few AIM issuers ever get publicly fined or reprimanded so, even if there has been some corporate negligence, any censure is likely to be kept secret. But an investigation is warranted because even AIM companies can't be allowed to carry on abusing the market. If Ashman & Co are guilty of breaking the rules, they will probably have to resign – unless an EGM gets them first. That probably wouldn't have any impact on the Croda business, nor on the research projects which are all on hold, and only a minor impact on the other parts of the business.

The revenue forecast up until the end of June was £5.3m plus Croda. Add in Croda actual and we were supposedly expecting £6m. It isn't credible that they would not have known about a near 25% miss at the year end so they should have issued a trading update, probably well before the year end. They said nothing – presumably because they were raising a bloated £4.2m in June (which Ashman stated categorically was not to shore up working capital to get a clean signoff from the auditors, but now can clearly be seen to have served that purpose).

The figures now reported certainly aren't terrible. They meet the much-reduced expectation and they include a significant sum from Croda. The subsidiaries have under-performed but that's temporary.

What TW and others are agitated about is Ashman's sleight-of-hand, his multiple mis-guidances and his obvious contempt for shareholders. He might have got away with his cavalier attitude if the results had exceeded expectations; but they didn't and Ashman keeps digging himself into an ever deeper hole – presumably with the blessing of his chairman and NEDs. The company will deliver but the C-suite is toxic.

Great way to start the week!

Having lost respect for the other Board members, I can only hope that new NED, Alyson Levett can kick some butt in the C-suite. Her LinkedIn profile claims a "wealth of shareholder and other stakeholder engagement and relationship expertise" - in which case she has a big job to turn around Skin's corporate governance failings.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alysonlevett/

The reported Croda revenue is far in excess of my expectations; but I wouldn't call it a golden egg until we see repeat orders from the cosmetics manufacturers. Same applies to Axis-ac.

Perhaps Ashman has learned the hard way that it's better to under-promise and over-deliver? We'll find out with the next trading update, which could come well before the HY results.

"When your business model depends on the companies you're “interviewing,” objectivity tends to take a back seat."

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So true.