Member Info for shychap

Raytheg, it's not as simple as that. When bona fide shareholders with bona fide questions on diverse topics don't get any kind of answer from the company, then the Board of SBTX is failing in its duty. There is no way forward from that.

Of course, major shareholders do get answers and Ashman told us that the subscribers to the 17p fundraise were taken inside – although I doubt that the Croda NDA was breached for them. Whether Ashman is ostracising all minority shareholders or only those whose names don't appear on the register isn't clear; but in any event, there can be no justification for his stance if questions are asked politely.

He has also misled shareholders on a number of occasions via the back channels and that can't be allowed to continue either.

In short, silence via RNS may be reasonable as long as the company is not hiding price-sensitive news; but the other matters are not.

This rule has now changed and only 5% of the voting rights are needed in order to call an EGM – whether held by one person or in aggregate by multiple signatories. But it would still be a big ask to organise enough PIs to do this so best done with the support of a significant shareholder.

If sufficient shareholders (>10%) still feel strongly after the results appear that Ashman needs to be replaced, it might be preferable to call an EGM after the AGM. This would offer certain advantages, eg:

1. It would give us time to find a first-rate replacement CEO candidate and vote on his appointment at the same meeting, thus avoiding a hiatus which could hurt the SP;

2. It would allow for the circulation to all shareholders a detailed note setting out the reasons to remove Ashman (and, no doubt, an equally detailed defence of Ashman to be circulated by the Board);

3. It could require the Board to convene the meeting at an accessible location (probably in central London) and provide live streaming.

This option would probably require the support of at least one major shareholder.

"we have a CEO who refuses to engage with his shareholders. In over 40 years in the City I have never come across such arrogance, he has negligible "skin in the game" what is he playing at?"

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Indeed, jansy - he has a duty to engage with shareholders, which he has clearly abrogated. He is in breach of his own QCA-based corporate governance code which states: "The Board is committed to communicating openly with shareholders to ensure that its strategy and performance are clearly understood." The QCA Code also states: "Shareholders should concern themselves with the stewardship of the companies in which they have invested. Engaged shareholders will carefully consider the disclosure made by the company and come to reasoned judgements on a case-by-case basis. Such shareholders will wish to engage directly with the company when governance concerns arise."

His motives for refusing to engage with anyone who is not a major shareholder may signal that he has something to hide; but there is evidence that he is simply being petty because he resents the criticisms of his performance by some minority shareholders. That being so, such vanity/stubbornness makes him unfit to serve us, imho.

"I also have I think a plausible theory about where all the shares that MD is hoovering up are coming from; investors like us who are pi55ed off waiting for something, anything to happen"

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He owns more shares than all PIs combined so they must come from other sellers too.

Thecontender, there is no way Ashman can buy shares while he continues to have price-sensitive inside information. With luck, that may change after the results come out, although I doubt it.

To my knowledge, MD does not have inside information and still has never spoken to Ashman, although that must surely change soon. I imagine that Ashman is desperate to talk to his biggest shareholder.

TW comments always worth reading. But that sesame character keeps copying my stuff.

Who could object? Sure, it might cost £20k but he is flush with cash and he owes us more than that for the six-month service outage we have just been subjected to. And if it's true that the AGM hotel can't deliver a live-stream facility as he told me a year ago, then he can just switch to another place, or even hold it in a studio.

I have now put out a feeler to a Northern law firm to find out whether I could be granted an injunction against Ashman holding *our* AGM in an underground bunker deep in Santa Claus's frozen foothills with no electricity.

Hopefully someone in Newcastle wakes up so that it doesn't come to this:

• Companies Act 2006 •

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/994

Part 30 Protection of members against unfair prejudice

• 994. Petition by company member

(1) A member of a company may apply to the court by petition for an order under this Part on the ground—

(a) that the company's affairs are being or have been conducted in a manner that is unfairly prejudicial to the interests of members generally or of some part of its members (including at least himself), or

(b) that an actual or proposed act or omission of the company (including an act or omission on its behalf) is or would be so prejudicial.

• 996. Powers of the court under this Part

(1) If the court is satisfied that a petition under this Part is well founded, it may make such order as it thinks fit for giving relief in respect of the matters complained of.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), the court's order may—

(a) regulate the conduct of the company's affairs in the future;

(b) require the company—

(i) to refrain from doing or continuing an act complained of, or

(ii) to do an act that the petitioner has complained it has omitted to do.

Bazzaman, unsurprisingly I have had no response, either from Ashman or from the ir@ investor enquiry address. Accordingly, I have now asked a regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, to intervene, specifically on the matter of live streaming the AGM which they happen to recommend to encourage shareholder engagement with the AGM. Failing that, it may take an injunction to stop Ashman & Co from hiding away.

Toyin, it's not at all OK if they are breaking their corporate governance code which requires them to facilitate shareholder engagement with their AGM (and much else which they are ignoring).

I have emailed him to request that the AGM be live streamed. He probably won't reply. Any other PI who wants to engage with the AGM but can't physically get there might want to drop a similar request to him and other Board members, company secretary, nomad, etc. They can't hate every PI, surely…

Pettiness aside, it is the Board's *duty* to facilitate wider shareholder engagement with the AGM – as confirmed in their corporate governance guidance.

Yes, I had previously heard that they were going to push it into January but the Companies Act prevents this by stipulating that a public company AGM must be held within 6 months of the period record date. So it has to be December. Avoiding public holidays, December 29 or 30 look the likeliest candidates. Any earlier date up to and including December 23 would also be feasible if Ashman & Co could get their act together in time on the FY results – which must be published at least 21 days before the AGM.

Given how difficult it is for many shareholders to get to Newcastle at this time of year, what are the chances that Ashman will stream the event live - see https://www.bitpod.co.uk/events/agms-and-meetings/agms-faqs/ - he should be doing everything to facilitate shareholder participation and streaming is a no-brainer unless his priority is to hide from shareholders.

Very upbeat Hercules IMC presentation this morning. SP must re-rate soon with contracts and cash flying in from all directions.

AquaeSulis01, but didn't Ashman claim that the Plc H1 accounts had been audited?

So he's confessing that the RNS was false or misleading? That's an offence no matter which way. It's also an offence not to issue a corrected RNS.

RNS said "unaudited" in three different places and has never been modified/corrected and you believe the H1 figures were audited because Ashman said so in a back-channel conversation? You haven't learnt much.

It is still not impossible that the results will be published this month. It all depends on when the AGM takes place since there has to be a 21-day gap between results and the AGM. But reliable sources have said that Ashman has responded to criticism about the festive timing of last year's AGM by moving the coming event into January – although he had the option of bringing it forward to pre-Xmas, which would require the results to appear this month. He also had the option of making life easier for most people by holding the AGM in London but I gather that this option has been ignored again. He has also sought to minimise attendance by booking a venue which is not easy to get to from Newcastle station; so I hope that PIs will scupper the plan by making the effort to turn up and ask questions.

Why haven't you bothered to check back under the RNS tab to see what happened at this time last year? Your repeated questions must be disingenuous since they are too basic to be genuine. I suspect your mission is simply to fan the embers of the camp fire every morning as the sun rises.

At least the touted stock market crash has been kicked down the road for a week:

"In its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, the firm said revenue for the three months to October jumped 62% to $57bn, driven by demand for its chips used in AI data centres. Sales from that division rose 66% to more than $51bn. Fourth-quarter sales forecasts in the range of $65bn also topped estimates, sending shares in Nvidia about 4% higher in after-hours trading."

Toyin, it's certainly a headscatcher. First Ashman tells us that the subsidiaries were performing in line with expectations. Then in the August trading update he tells us: "Revenues were slightly lower than market expectations due to timing of orders for Dermatonics…". Then we hear from LinkedIn about Dermatonics "fantastic growth this year". The only possible explanations are that a) Ashman hasn't got a clue; or b) all of the "fantastic growth" has happened since July.

For sure, most PI-centric AIM outfits would have issued an RNS or RNS-R about it. And it likely would have moved the SP up. So, is it just that Ashman is clueless? Or is he waging some kind of vendetta against the PIs who dare to challenge his performance? Or does he have an ulterior motive for keeping the SP as low as possible? I'm leaning towards clueless but the other runners can't be ruled out.