May I suggest you step back and think, just for a short time, what exactly is happening in and to this company as we write on this forum. Consider at least 3 problems management face:
First, there are technology issues. They have achieved, in a university laboratory, the production of a 100nm microprocessor at the request of a potential partner. They are now faced with a series of challenges. Do we make the gate smaller and how do we produce what we have so that interested companies (there are suggestions of interest) can test and validate the processor? This will involve a manufacturing run in a fabrication manufactory with all its attendant problems with a new substrate (Gallium Arsenide) which we know is entirely different to Silicon production – the Lord alone knows how this will come out. Then there is the machine coding of a processor and a validation process to compare all manner of functions of a microprocessor against various standards. Such activity will be costly unless the partner bares some or all of the cost; just imagine the negotiations involved. I write this to suggest strongly that, at this point, I suspect we are in the middle of such activity. If it is so, then silence will be the management’s watchword until a final outcome is achieved. This will not be quick and will be open to variation without retail investors having any hint of progress. It may be that there are several groups involved and silence reigns until all complete.
Secondly: there are the financial issues regarding the cost of achieving production. The treasure chest is said to be sufficient but, in view of the quite unexpected appointment of Ajit Manocha, and the possibility that other appointments are to occur, including a CEO, then a legitimate question will be “do we need to raise more and will there be revenue to support these appointments in the near future? To me this seems an imponderable on present information.
Finally: there are the shareholder problems, after all as owners of the company we should be a problem uppermost in management’s mind. It seems that they are not too worried about the share price; at least, this is what Peter Copetti expressed according to CC recently. However, the request for a reverse split (RS) option indicates some concern about price. Perhaps some of the concerns expressed on the forum can be explained by this subterranean feeling of uncertainty that surrounds this issue. It seems to me the request for a RS centres on the issue that it allows a “freedom of action” for the management in these uncertain times rather than something for immediate action. Perhaps this is an issue that will be addressed at the AGM.
In all this, I suggest, that managements task are very difficult and we have entered a period of considerable uncertainty. Some of it is unanswerable, even by those closest to the problems. A minute’s thought on the last 12 months will show that, at one time, we had the luxuries offered by a series of milestones, achievable and within a sensible time frame. When announced great excitement and leaps in the share price followed by slow subsidence of the price until the next announcement. No wonder price manipulation was possible, buy as price fell from one announcement and take stab at selling after the next – easy money. Now this has gone, the announcements now will be unpredictable and centre around the assumption of successful production and partnerships; even P2 is predicated entirely on such an assumption. We then sit with bated breath and watch. This, in fact, is inevitable, it is not a problem management can deal with by injudicious claims or foolish conjecture. It has now become an article of faith on our part; faith in the only management we have who have successfully got us this far. We are, after all said and done, a venture stock and, in the immortal homespun words of President Harry Truman, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”.
I, for one, believe in this stock wholeheartedly but accept there is a risk of failure and loss. I cannot do anything else; it is a common experience among all ventures like this. So, if you trust the management, as I do, not because I am an acolyte of this management but because I am convinced they are honest, hard-working and, so far, successful and have no reason to doubt them. I appreciate the difficulties at this time. If you accept this, then allow them the freedom to use conventional share price adjustment to better the chances of success. Let them decide the issue because you cannot remotely know better than them.
David
