Originally posted by doubledeckerdog
The reason that I continue to talk about the need for a capital raising is because they have negative net cash.
What this means is that they have more debt than cash.
They may well be able to lead the market to optimism, by quoting gross cash balance of $18m or whatever the actual number is - but they have borrowings of $20m that costs I think from memory 9% p.a. interest.
It is not cheap money.
The Board should not be happy diving deeper into debt - that is just the way boards are - conservative.
It is self evident that "exploration" companies in minerals, energy and biotech sould not operate on borrowed money and it is why most raise funds when the net cash gets below about $5m.
In a nutshell, it is a really dumb strategy to borrow for "exploration" when there is no reliable, recurrent income.
The money they get from Merck each year is basically to pay wages for a number of scientists - more or less contract research sort of an approach.
So, I do not regard that as real recurrent income - as I would get for a royalty or for product sales.
The near term may bring a tax refund to square the books and maybe get back into a net positive cash position, but it is a temporary fix.
The CEO has been trying to sell the oncology assets for more than six months - if not more like 12 months or more - with no evidence of progress.
All the while, the agitation trial will be draining funds.
I note that a few other posters seem disgruntled about CEO's remuneration - and with good reason in my opinion.
My last post was modded for making unsubstantiated comments - I trust that this post helps to clarify the basis of why I believe that a capital raising is needed in the near future.
I would be happy to hear why anyone believes that spending borrowed money on clinical trials or research makes commercial sense unless insolvency does not cause any fear for the board - or unless there is a very real near term possibility of an asset sale or milestone payment (in tehcase of a biotech).
There is insufficient information in the public domain to dismiss these concerns about cash - sorry if you do not see why.
they need to start making payments on the loans next month too. I doubt that Rathjen addresses this at the agm.
I have a feeling that she is going to make things much worse in her AGM address, The same problems that shareholders had half a decade ago still persist. She seems completely uninterested in the Shareholders or the value of the company.
Even for a small cap company communications are woeful. What has she been doing since the release of the failed PTSD results. In the last 3 weeks shareholders are poorer than ever and she's taken home something like $25,000.
She has an opportunity at the AGM to talk about the loan repayments, why she hasn't sold the oncology assets, what she has done over the last year to earn her half mill.
My guess is that she'll do none of this and soon after the AGM we'll be at sub 10 cents.
