I guess I am more concerned about the price you are paying for...

I guess I am more concerned about the price you are paying for the business and at some points it has been attractive and others not. The business has done ok over the long term which is why I have bought it but it has also been around for a very long time and except for the period from 2012 until 2016 it has not been a good investment for shareholders since about 2004.

Not sure what happened with the financial structure of the company at that point in 2004. From the interview with Alan Kohler and Cheetham he explained that the long decline was because after the market spike was because they thought they were going to get composites out to market quickly and at that point they would have been revolutionary but it was a lot harder than they though and it took them 5-10 years longer to get the composites to work properly. I.e. colour, strength etc. So the excitement went away and they were spending all this money on R&D and in the meantime amalgam sales kept declining and the company still had all this debt that had accumulated and they weren't paying off as they were investing the money into R&D.

Now how is this company not acting as a private family company if they are still paying management good wages when debt is still outstanding, they are putting extra money in R&D when sales are declining.

A normal public company would cut wages, cut staff, cut R&D to maintain the companies profitability and retire the debt and then when the finances are stabilised reinvest into R&D to grow the company.

What you prefer is up to you and there is merit in both approaches.