The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
I agree, they are cashing out and trashing the share price as they do it. And they couldn’t care less. Not one for me. They will be lucky to still be at a £ in 6 months time.
It was much like previous presentations although in fairness to the CEO. I thought he did ok on the Q & A.
The SP does not improve on the jam tomorrow forward forecasting of a CEO who;
1. Plays silly games with last minute announcements which makes him look childish and just reinforces the perception that he is not cut out for the role making the company uninvestable.
2. Doesn’t take responsibility for the SP or oft poor numbers and engages in diversionary tactics to explain the exceptionally poor SP (shorts, Yen etc).
3. Has missed targets and projections so often that any future targets and projections are dismissed and therefore never lead to a positive sustained share price increase.
4. Refuses to provide a strategic update and allows a chairman to go missing.
The only ways out of this hole are to trade out and deliver positive numbers year on year and deliver profits or through a takeover. The latter won’t happen because the CEO and his mates control the shares and solidify their control through unjustified dilution.
The former will take years to achieve but is dependent on the removal of this CEO and the in office, but invisible, chairman.
This company is being held back by its CEO, he needs to resign and make way for a seasoned, mature and capable CEO with a track record of delivering good numbers, profits and a strong sustainable SP.
Until that happens, it will remain Groundhog Day for the company and its long suffering long term holders.
Potential, potential, potential. But it never realises that potential and it never will, with a CEO who plays silly unprofessional childish games.
Full year will be the same as usual - unfulfilled potential with the man child CEO promising that next year will be different, except it won’t, it will be just like all of the other years since it listed.
A growth stock struggling to grow in key areas, delivering no profit held back by a CEO who is not capable of being a CEO of a listed company. Another 12 months of drifting is assured unless some spectacular announcement is made on the investor call, which I very much doubt will happen.
I’d love to be wrong but I fear it’s going to be another THG Groundhog Day presentation from a group who now look and sound like they can’t be bothered.
It’s probably time for Matt to open up his bag of spanners and start selling them off individually now.
Still no strategic update - promised over 12 months ago.
Still no word from the Trappist Monk Chairman or IR despite Matt saying he’d take on Board the poor comms.
Still no improvement on the share price since Apollo bid rejected.
The Board looked beaten on the investor call, the company looks beaten.
Either Matt needs to hand over to a proper CEO or start disposing of the spanners as the sp is going nowhere any time soon on his watch.
I speculate but I expect to see it close up around 4% unless we get an exciting strategic update which we might……
If we don’t, we have an ok set of numbers from a growth company which isn’t really growing but is making progress all the same.
Without a good meaningful strategic update, it’s going to be a grind to get back to a quid.
I have a hunch though that MM is going to stick it to the shorts this morning and announce something interesting.
Let’s see - GLA
Worrying downward trend and Directors dumping shares. I popped in here to see whether the fall in share price make this one attractive. Not one for me. I don’t like the negative trends and don’t see any upside during the next 12 months.
Posting this analysis in the Grocer which remains spot on despite it being almost 12 months old.
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/mergers-and-acquisitions/the-price-of-taking-thg-private-may-prove-hard-for-bidders-to-swallow/678365.article
Has anything changed in the last 12 months?
The price is broadly the same. There is still no strategic update. The CEO and Board remain dysfunctional. We’ve had a set of mildly encouraging numbers but to move the SP, encouraging numbers must be the norm, not the exception.
LTH have been patient but they lose patience rapidly as a result of petulant LinkedIn rantings rather than proper mature investor communications via RNS.
Yes there has been a decent increase in the last couple of weeks but as another poster said recently, THG has a CEO whose antics can drop the price 25% in a day.
It is sub 70p and imo getting back to a £1 is going to be tough because I expect the same chaotic behaviour from the CEO over the next 12 months backed up by the all too often dismal figures and losses.
It comes down to this. The CEO needs to go. He is a liability and he is incapable of changing. He’s despised by those who are integral to the LSE and he’s dragged THG into a fight it can’t win unless it can regularly produce stellar numbers (which it’s proven it can’t).
I used to consider VOD depressingly boring in the 1.20’s. Now it’s depressingly boring sub 75p. Where did it all go wrong (apart from the eye watering debt)?
The crash down was way overdone and this rise is very welcome. For me, the jury is still out on this management team. Reaping the benefits of the actions of the previous CEO imo. What is this CEO’s strategy and can he deliver real growth and materially improve the SP? I’m yet to be convinced.
Whilst PI’s can vent as best they can through voting against any proposed resolutions at the AGM, I wonder whether there will be a Q and A? If there is, no doubt the usual suspects will be asking the usual tame patsy questions of the useless Board. I’ve thought of some questions I’d like asking;
1. Do you think Bubbles the Chimp would be a more effective CEO than you, Matt?
2. Was it wise to appoint Lord Trappist Monk to the BoD?
3. On the basis you’d be eaten for breakfast if you listed in America, is it time to perhaps admit that you are stuck where you are?
4. What happens to a growth company which stops growing but remains a decade away from making a profit?
5. How much do you think we’d have to pay LinkedIn to ban you from LinkedIn, Matt?
I’m sure others have some equally incisive questions for Matt. Perhaps we could all send our questions to Matt via LinkedIn because there’s absolutely no chance a critical question will be put to him at the AGM (assuming he doesn’t duck a Q and A session which he might).
It’s almost in the 50’s. Another week of the IR Trappist Monks doing what Trappist Monks do complimented by a Matt LinkedIn outburst about the LSE and shorters (ignoring past missed forecasts, dismal results and his general disconnect with the market due to personal character flaws) and we will be there.
Come on ye olde king of value destruction, you master of disaster, one final push and it’s back to the 50’s, well below Apollo’s offer and about £5.50 away from your deranged “fair value” assessment.
#timeforchange #valuedestroyingCEO
Totally agree, this was crashed down way too low. Pleasing to see it moving back up.
Should keep improving as more money is put into people’s pockets as prices fall and taxes and interest rates are cut.
Problem 1 - the CEO
Problem 2 - the Chairman
Problem 3 - targets being habitually missed.
It is possible that problem 3 will cease to be a problem and the company has genuinely turned a corner.
Problem 2 cannot be fixed without first fixing problem 1.
Problem 1 cannot be fixed. THG is practically un-investable because of problem 1 - hence the relentless destruction in share value.
Matt is doing a great job and has taken the price down below the level it was prior to the Apollo bid 12 months ago. That bid was rejected because it failed to recognise THG’s value.
So what is its value? 12 months on, it’s less than it was. The Trappist monk of a chairman has uttered as many words as Wild Kong and we know more about Matt’s skiing holidays than we do about the company’s strategy.
It is time for Matt to go. He is a useless CEO.
It is time for the Trappist monk to go. He has proved himself to be useless despite his CV.
The replacement is a cheap imitation.
Spot on and THG is an easy and compelling share to short because there is a track record of making promises which aren’t delivered on (strategic review) and forecasts which are never delivered and always come in disappointingly below forecast. Add in the utter disdain for shareholders, CEO petulance, “the jolly boys club” and a chairman seen and heard less frequently than the Loch Ness monster and you have the perfect short.
Set out a clear strategy and deliver the numbers. The share price will rise and the shorting and criticism of the CEO and the jolly boys club members will then stop.
We know IR at THG are absolutely hopeless so we cannot rule out rank amateurism. However, I think it more likely that investor pressure (Kelso as you speculate) has forced them to publish this RNS.
If that is right, it will hopefully lead to better governance and a realisation that the Board cannot get away with failing to act or deliver on its promises.
This brings me on to the strategic update. It is nothing short of appalling that the promised strategic update has never been provided and that THG has a Chairman who refuses to force the issue.
If the Chairman is too weak to handle the CEO and hold him to account, then he has to be replaced.
JD shops in my location were also very busy. Hopefully a bumper Christmas will help the share price to recover.
I’m reminded of the line from that song;
“This time, more than any other time, this time”
And they didn’t win the World Cup.
I hope it will be different this time when the Trappist Monks who allegedly work in IR provide a rare RNS in January re Q4 trading.
I also hope there will be no more Linkedin rantings in the lead up to Christmas or the blaming of everybody else for the destruction of shareholder value which is almost wholly attributable to the delivery of consistently uninspiring numbers.
Can we trust the CEO and THG to end “the Cycle”?
We shall see.
GLA
Re-posting this as I fear we are in the later phase of the cycle - let’s call it the giddy phase.
The Cycle18 Oct 2023 08:33
Bad set of numbers.
Negativity and butchered share price.
LinkedIn rantings, further butchering the share price.
Justified criticism of MM’s failings.
Spats between the devout followers and those calling it for what it is.
Positivity builds through speculation.
Positive trading updates.
Share price ticks up
Positivity builds
Talk of £7 per share returns.
Share price ticks up in anticipation of results.
Bad set of numbers again.
Rinse and repeat.
Another year passes.