Member Info for shychap

£6.5m for Advantage NRG. I wondered if they had overpaid for this acquisition but will be delighted to be proved wrong.

"Surprised he hasn’t gone direct and offered a deal with OPTI."

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belugawhale, for someone who is constantly spouting about MD's strategy and endgame, you again prove that you don't know him and just make stuff up, as rampers do. I can assure you - since I do know him - that he has tried on several occasions to buy OPTI's SBTX shares off-market, via their broker.

Please try not to make your job here so obvious.

Don't be short-sighted. The SP would have been higher and much sooner if Ashman & Co were managing the company properly instead of barricading themselves in. To attract new IIs, we need an honest, trustworthy, professional and savvy CEO. Instead, we've got this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHuYQpprVggriVeVW4kYopjRLq80Fxcn/view?usp=drive_link

Oh dear, it looks like this RNS fail needs another complaint to the regulator. And when it costs Ashman time and money to respond, guess who he will blame?

Good work, AquaeSulis01 - that's very interesting. Too bad development work on that pillar has been shut down by Ashman.

"I agree that the acquisition wasn’t accretive in its first, partial year—though many of us had hoped it might be."

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Expected, rather than "hoped" – because Ashman told us it would be immediately accretive.

Not that we all believed him of course.

Disco_Dan, I'm sticking with Singer's projections - not least because they appear to be the only reliable source of data and willing to cut through Ashman's bullshine. Also, the annual report warns us of unpredictable Croda revenues which suggests we shouldn't project forward based on FY25 revenues. I do believe that Croda will come good, but not properly until the end of the decade.

AquaeSulis01, I only tell the truth. I did have faith in Ashman when I first invested but, as I reported here at the time, I bought another 150,000 shares late in the year by when I had long fallen out of love with the BoD.

And I didn't buy SBTX because I was looking for a risk-free investment. I wanted some risk and the possibility of a multi-bagger.

AquaeSulis01, I suspect that many PIs, including me, bought SBTX shares without having much faith in the management. The logic is sound: the golden goose will continue to lay eggs however badly Ashman performs. Our BoD are no longer involved in Zenakine and don't even need to be there. Shareholders will see a return from Croda whatever Ashman does.

But for optimal returns they need the other parts of the business to be properly run – and they certainly don't want Ashman breaking all the Croda golden eggs to spend shareholders' cash on yet more non-accretive acquisitions, especially given his poor record on acquisitions to date.

Basically, some shareholders don't trust him to safeguard the Croda cash or use it wisely. If the subsidiaries are worth keeping, invest in them to make them profitable but don't go throwing our precious cash at yet more self-aggrandising acquisitions when we aren't even making a profit yet.

He has already demonstrated, too often, that he doesn't give a fig for us pesky shareholders who own his company and pay his wages. So why would we trust him with our cash?

That said, there surely won't be enough Croda cash incoming over the next couple of years to fund the lifestyle that Ashman talks about. Singer projects Croda revenues at under £1m for at least the next two years so Ashman is living in la-la land if he thinks the Croda income will fund his acquisition spree.

And if he has closed down all our R&D projects in order to free up more cash for his personal shopping, he should be fired forthwith. Our IP is the key to the company's future growth and it makes no sense at all to shut down NPD just as we raised £4.2m allegedly to support one retail trial. Perhaps he has his greedy eye fixed on that money too, in which case he is leading SBTX down the road to ruin.

PIs didn't invest in Ashman's empire dream and, quite rightly, rail against it.

PGlancy, spare us the pathetic pleading. The RNS was crystal clear - and even if Ashman had stated at the Q&A that the IMC wouldn't happen in January (which he obviously did not) he would still have been required to issue an RNS to correct the misinformation in the 5 Dec RNS.

However…we are still in January so the IMC could conceivably still happen this month; alternatively, there is still time for a correcting RNS this month.

You can repeat what Ashman told you to say as often as you like but you're wasting your time here. Tell Ashman to apologise and adopt a responsible and accountable modus operandi. It will save time and money.

Belugawhale, you're wasting your breath on the wrong people. You should be telling Ashman to stop costing the business money. Remember who is to blame…

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHuYQpprVggriVeVW4kYopjRLq80Fxcn/view?usp=drive_link

Mr Market didn't like the auditing delay. What could hold them up for two months?

Your memory is selective, Obsisian. I said that I was more than happy to engage with Eldric here, in a broad church and in public but not on his platform. He lost interest at that point – presumably because he couldn't monetise, or control, a public debate.

But ISTR that I responded here anyway when I eventually got to see the trumped up nonsense he was peddling. I'm sure you will find it in my history since presumably no-one else can be bothered to look for it.

In essence, Eldric peddles insinuations and accusations, very much in your style, without any supporting facts. If you, or he, wants to engage with me, you will need facts, quotes, evidence rather than immature conspiracy theories which aren't worth wasting my time on.

And if Eldric still wants to engage with me, I will always be happy to do so on this board – or, if he wants a private chat, I'm sure he can get my email address, phone number, PIN, National Insurance number, etc from Ashman. I can assure you that he doesn't though. He and I speak different languages.

"Shychap hasn’t just criticised Elric — he’s built an entire identity around being right about him"

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What tosh. You and Eldric would love that to be true but my focus is on Ashman. Ask Ashman & Co if I have ever even mentioned Eldric in my correspondence with them. Perhaps Eldric already did ask him and was crestfallen to hear that he hadn't rated a mention in despatches.

As for being "right" about him, I have been critical of his interviewing style which, as it happens, is an expert opinion and not negotiable. Others are entitled to their own opinion of course. And I have highlighted his betrayal of shareholders in advising Ashman to remove the re-election resolutions from the AGM agenda. That's a fact, confirmed by Eldric's own hand, and it will never go away.

Otherwise, I have objected to his followers' habit of posting links here to his paywall site. There are no shades of grey there either.

Of course, I understand that Eldric would like to shut down all criticism of him – in much the same way as Ashman – but asking people to apologise for qualified and honestly held opinions is a bit rich.

Bazzao, remind me exactly what I owe Eldric an apology for? He has repeatedly defamed, insulted and disenfranchised me so perhaps I misread your post. Not that I need an apology from him since his Machiavellian self-promoting, witch's brew rants are irrelevant penny bangers.

No worries, Obsisian: I took no offence and it did make you look a bit like a desperate psychopath, which was fine by me. It was the rest of your invented and unevidenced nonsense that needed the apology – not to me because I don't give a fig how you waste your time, but to TW (who probably also doesn't care but isn't here to say so).

Loss leaders can be effective marketing tools. Can anyone recall if similar deep discounts have been offered to new customers on Axis-ps in the past?

How come the leader has been standing in for the previously garrulous belugawhale, shreksdonkey, PGlancy and kitchentowel today? Weren't they up to the task, or is this a fiendish new formation?

75% off seems a bit extreme. Is that a genuine offer?

Incidentally, I was pleased to see that Superdrug are now targeting the Axis products properly as "Axisbiotix-Ps Psoriasis Support Sachets" and "Axisbiotix-Ac Acne Support Sachets" – although the packaging is still non-specific.