Everyone was expecting a rise after the good markman - the opposite was the case. Why?
No follow-up licensees, no M&A news, massive uncertainty regarding the upcoming trial and the Re-exams - and all accompanied by a non-communication through PTSC.
I always "suspected" the warrants agreement to be the main reason for the lack of information by PTSC - and if you take a look at the recent 10Q you'll find an impressive LOW sum PTSC had paid for the warrants buyback (something around 3mio). Now imagine SP would have been in the 80ies/90ies and not in the 40ies/50ies, Patriot would have paid 6mio = 3mio more. This would have had a significant influence on the quarter results (remember Q1/07-08 was a loss, Q2 wasn't impressive).
What does this mean?
This means, a good CFO would probably step to his CEO and tell him, don't try to push our SP, because IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE for us at this time. It is in no way right to think, Patriot had tens of millions of money in 2007! Patriot had to spend EVERY dime very carefully - and IMO the low SP last year was in full compliance with the financial situation and targets.
(For those of you, who think this is a conspiracy theory: Maybe you know "Porsche" and "Volkswagen" - two german car producer.
Porsche managed to buy a lot of stock of Volkswagen at a bargain price: The former CEO of Volkswagen, Mr. Piech, is one of the biggest owner of Porsche and he was perfectly informed about the numbers of Volkswagen (additionally he had the main seat at the "council" of VW). In 2006 the PRESENTED numbers of VW were bad, CEO had to go, SP tanked, but Porsche bought and bought until 2007, where it got clear, that the numbers were getting better and better and the market got more and more information about the buying activity from Porsche (and of course the shareprice increased). As soon as Porsche had the numbers of shares, they planned to have, the numbers were presented and the shareprice...well, you know, in the end, Porsche has bought Volkswagen for ZERO, for NADA, because their genius CFO made some great hedging transactions financing the sharebuying of VW and the share bought for X are now worth 2X.)
Sorry for this OT-story, but it clearly indicates, that a modern CFO has to be more than accountant.
Back to my point: It is no doubt, that the low shareprice helped Patriot to save a lot of money in 2007.
And now look at the pattern since the settlement: Shareprice decreases and stays in a flat line (I'm still thinking, someone is accumulating, but this is not my point now.)
My point is: WHY would the company be interested in a low shareprice - when I compare the pattern of the last weeks with the pattern of June-September 07 (timeframe for the pricing of the warrant buyback).
Could it be for the same reason as last year, when there was an agreement defining a price related to the performance of the SP over a certain period?
Of course I don't know, who would be the buyer and who would be the seller, I'm just looking at the pattern and the facts relating to it.
GLTA
