Ann: Operational Update and New Series 4 Launch, page-41

How can a board be allowed to let an operational business lose so much quarter on quarter on quarter? My problem is not the Yowie product, but the management. Why can't they make money, let alone break even, on $30m a year worth of chocolate sales?

I would say that any private business with $30m of chocolate sales that didn't have $25m in the bank would cut costs in very quick order to ensure they were cashflow positive and would no doubt be making reasonable profits. Excuse my rough numbers, but they say their margin is about 50%, so there's ~$15m coming in each year to cover overheads... yet they still lose $10m a year? They're spending $25m a year on corporate overhead and below the line expenses?? You've got to be kidding me.

They're using the company's material cash reserves as a cushy cloud of corporate comfort with no nous, no savvy, no urgency and no care. The sad thing is, that if you took the cash reserve away... these guys wouldn't buckle up and make the necessary changes to their cost line... they'd just quit!

Shareholders need to stand up, throw out this board, and hold the directors accountable for their total disregard of retail shareholders driven by their own greed, laziness and self-interest. Yowie was set up as a financial engineering exercise to make its executives rich at the expense of the capital markets (and retail shareholders)... not as a viable operational business. It's time to turn this on its head and get back to basics.

I'm a very unhappy shareholder.