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Just to be objective, and without any intended disrespect to Nicole...
- I don't doubt this is Nicole's understanding and message. I have never doubted her sincerity.
- Some of Nicole's reported comments and explanations reported here in the past have been proven wrong (I.e. The big shareholders are very happy, we have talked to them and they aren't selling, etc). Right before Adage sold 1.5M shares and Fidelity sold 3M. So hearing something from Nicole does not mean it will turn out to be true
- Advaxis has been assuring various retail investors by phone or email over the last 3 years. All while the PPS has crashed from $30 to $2, and at every single step along the way Advaxis management has relayed some variation of "surprised" or "disappointed" or "hopeful" or has never expected things to get worse. Basically this BOD and management has a 3 year track record of being a deer caught in the headlights and they are either unaware of what was happening or unable to aggressively defend against it. In a word, ineffective. Their track record strongly suggests they are in over their head.
- While I am not personally calling for anyone to lose a job, having been around Pharma most of my career, there is no question this company is management top heavy at this stage and have proven to be extremely poor financial stewards.
- The fact that they all just voted themselves raises after now claiming they were worried about getting the "going concern" label suggests they still don't get it and are still completely overmatched by the circumstances they find themselves in. They repeatedly appear to want it both ways.
- Their official communications to investors has been an embarrassment. Especially since DOC was fired. They owe investors better. Especially after the pretty terrible last 3 years with the PPS under constant assault and their inability to staunch the bleeding.
That just seems like facts to me. Not an attack nor endorsement of anyone.
Personally if I took over this company I would keep Petit and let whoever he wanted to keep stay and pretty much everyone else might be gone or be replaced.
I think your last question is a good one.
To me there was never any good logical explanation why a company would have their temporary CEO negotiate and sign the biggest deals in company history...deals that would largely frame the future of what was or wasn't possible...and only after that hire the "real" stud CEO. It never made sense to me.
Keeping Lombardo around for this long and beyond, and still carrying the title of "interim" only made sense to me if they planned on selling the company or if they couldn't find a good CEO willing to take over what the BOD has allowed to become a crap sandwich.
And oh yeah, after today I feel I owe a case of beer to SD21 for his relentless ragging on the BOD for as long as I can remember.
He was more right than I realized.
I sincerely hope, for all of our sakes, that this is the ransom payment that TINFOILLURKER first suggested was going to be forced on them last summer.
Only then we argued over whether they could force a ransom payment at $5. I never thought that ADXS management and BOD would allow them to take them down under $2. Amazing.
Whether this is simply fecklessness and gross incompetence on display, or plain ole skullduggery, either way it's sickening. Like EQUAL, I am disgusted by this BOD and management. I don't trust them anymore going forward and this time I will take some profits when I think the timing is right (assuming we ever get that chance).
However, if we don't start seeing some major shrinkage in the short numbers, I think this challenges the thesis some of us have about this being a ransom payment.
While I no longer trust management, I do still trust in greed. If Adage has stuck around this long I can only assume it's because they still see potential for profit. After this meltdown I can only assume other funds like Adage will see opportunity for a pump from these low levels and may soon want to run this just like CALA from $2ish to $19ish.
The last missing piece to the puzzle is the flame for the tinder...some major announcement from ADXS about a partnership or early prostate results or something of that nature to use as the excuse for launch.
But make no mistake, at this point it doesn't feel good to believe that one's best hope for being saved is to trust that the greed and avarice of others is what will bail you out in the end.
We'll see.
The problem as always is the 2 extremes. What about somewhere in the middle?
Is this science really only worth $50M? Everything? Including NEO and AXAL? That's the current value the market is assigning to it once you subtract cash, receivables, and assets.
Even if one believes that this truly wretched BOD and the lackeys they install in senior management positions aren't capable of ever getting the valuation up to KITE / JUNO levels...is there still enough real there to believe some company could ante up maybe $750M to $1B for this at some point?
Is it possible that there is no plan or strategy at all involved here and these guys really are just that terrible and incompetent?
Unfortunately I don't think it would be wise to just casually dismiss your comments. There is plenty to legitimately question here, over the past 12 months especially.
Mortmann,
My research also matches yours. I actually sent some emails to ADXS for clarification on the July vs October warrants and if Adage was ever granted warrants. They wouldn't give me an answer beyond referring me back to the statements. So ADXS would neither confirm nor deny, but the statements I have reviewed don't appear to show Adage holding any warrants that I can pinpoint specifically.
Ha! Good one!
Just watched that movie recently.
No matter how good and smart these hedge funds are, how do you bat 1.000 like they have in ADXS for 3 years unless they are stealing signals somewhere?
Well, for sure now we know how the BOD can keep their seats with no challengers and no votes required.
Just keep feeding the funds what they want in a series of unending backroom deals.
Of course some of the stuff we are speculating about would be straight up illegal if true.
However I don't know how to explain how these hedge funds have operated with such conviction and impunity and success for almost 3 years now. It's almost like they have had inside info all along and knew in advance everything that was coming. And they have been pre-positioned perfectly to benefit from it.
That seems like either a well placed mole or leaks by design.
While none of us know the full truth (obviously), the timing of all this is way too odd and leads one to strongly suspect there must be some backroom deal making behind this.
This BOD appears to have a track record spanning 10+ years of working deals with entities and hedge funds whose motivations range from highly questionable to straight up toxic financiers.
In their defense, regardless if one agrees or disagrees with them, maybe the BOD views these moves as required to keep ADXS alive and afloat for this long.
But regardless, there is definitely a plan in the works that seems to have been in place since at least October of last year (i.e. Lombardo hitting the ATM).
We'll see if that plan finally results in a PPS that eventually moves much higher from here. Or if their plan ends like many of their others over the last decade.
I agree. I am disgusted, but as weird as it sounds I seriously hope you are correct.
This theory some of us here have discussed is probably the only real chance we retail investors have at this point. We are forced to hope that the crooks bank their profits and cover and then run the PPS back up the flagpole like it's the spring of 2015 all over again.
I also wonder if this offering ends up in the hands of certain funds who are currently shareholders (we know who they are) and in return they will now vote YES across the board on their proxies?
I don't know how to explain the seriously weird and unexplained timing any other way.
I actually agree and I suspect these guys running the BOD and company are bigtime Kool Aid drinkers and really do believe they are worth KITE / JUNO money.
I don't agree with them.
Okay, not arguing with you, as I am trying to figure out the strategy behind this but can't really see a clear one. Why do an offering now if they intended the 30M shares for more offerings?
Why not just avoid an offering now? Why do it BEFORE the Proxy votes?
Ahhhhh...if that is true then it makes it even all the more interesting.
If true then why did ADXS wait till they were lying in the gutter bleeding out at $2.50 to do an offering? Why not at $6 or $5?
I am not sure I understand the strategy being played out here? I am hoping there is one.
The great irony is that DOC just ran a secondary at ONCS and the stock has already recovered. We will see how Lombardo manages this one.
Tin, it will be very interesting from this point forward to see...
- What Adage does
- Do shorts finally cash in and cover?
I still find it hard to stomach that this BOD doesn't get replaced entirely after the past 12 months especially. I am concerned that means there is an entity that controls the BOD and they are perfectly happy with the lackeys they have in place.
But yet Amgen has continued to hold their 3+M shares, over 7% of the company, all the way down from $16 down to $2.50 although they have known ADXS was a "dud" all along.
That logic tree makes total sense.
The absolutely anemic volume here for days now is almost interesting. Nobody makes money at these levels with such pathetic volume. Shorts might be .50 cents a share richer on paper from 3 weeks ago, but any covering in volume by them would likely evaporate that paper profit almost immediately.
It would be nice to believe that ADXS has something in the works to break this gridlock.
Unfortunately I agree. ADXS has never even communicated what would trigger those milestones. Some could be years away based on even good clinical progress. As I stated before they are probably worth at most .10 cents on the dollar in today's money.
Perception is also a significant component of PPS valuation, especially in Biotech. And right now the overall perception of ADXS (fair or not) is very low. That's why the market is barely assigning value to anything inside the company. As absurd (or maybe even unfair) a valuation is of only $50M for all non-cash assets, programs, and IP...this is where management matters and why good management is so important, especially in Biotech.
All Biotechs come under assault at one time or another, and the quality of management can make a major impact on how that company weathers the storm and emerges from it.
I am a shareholder based on the science and continue to hope for the best. But unfortunately we have had extremely limited communications from an interim CEO who is entering his 9th month on the job, still no CMO, no partnership (yet), and a BOD that apparently answers to no one regardless of how many mistakes some of them have made over the last decade.
I think the idea that this specific management crew and BOD could ever get the value of this company to $6B someday is not realistic. But I still hold out hope for a $750M to $1B valuation in time.
Gotcha. I'm not privy to those internal meetings at Adage like you are, so I can only defer to your wisdom.
Unfortunately the actual buying volume behind this move is anemic. They flipped the algos to take it up. And to your point whenever they have done this in the past they were just tweaking the PPS up for another takedown.
My guess is that they weren't happy and weren't getting enough real selling volume while they were dropping it last week so they will take it up on light volume so they can make the next drop they engineer look more dramatic.
At least that's been the playbook so far.
I'm quite happy to be proven wrong on some things.
You've still never explained how Denner was supposed to take over ADXS when Adage and Amgen own 17% of the shares?
I would be all for Denner taking over, but for better or worse Adage doesn't yet seem willing to give up control of the agenda?
Tin, the reason I always gave some semblance of credence to your theories from last summer (even if I didn't agree completely) is because for me something does not add up when it comes to Adage's role is this saga.
They almost act like a company that feels very comfortable with a BOD that may be imbeciles or complicit, and are profiting immensely from it.
I mean it's almost like even if the BOD and ADXS management were actually trying to intentionally help shorts cover, I'm not sure they could have been any more effective than what we've seen since last summer.
Yep, you understand the scenarios I am running thru. Another one I was focusing on, let's call it (4) Adage has positioned themselves for a direct placement at an even lower buy-in than they got in December 2014.
It just doesn't make sense to me how a company like Adage could continue to hold 4M shares with a BOD that has demonstrated a 10+ year track record of failure and not take an activist position and replace any of them and have a CEO installed they approve of?
Certainly Adage is getting access to inside info we are not? Why would Adage continue to sit by and let the PPS slide into oblivion if there was no turn in sight?
Adage has to be getting something out of this? I'm just waiting to see if and when that something gets revealed.
I wouldn't sweat that too much. The real question was never how low they would take it, but whether this was ever going to turn.
If it does turn this could move .70 in a day or two. It can move multiple dollars in a week or two.
But right now there is no buying interest in volumes significant enough to overcome the algos that are walking this down on low volume.
Interestingly enough, the volume across most of the Biotech sector last week was light. Even though the IBB and XBI rallied, many stocks I follow were neutral to up on low volume.
It's odd, because for all the predictions that 2018 was going to be huge year for Biotech M&A, nobody seems to want to really commit in any major way. I'm guessing rates going up is the negative drag? I can't figure out what else it would be.
So the question I keep coming back to, is why would Adage continue to stick around with 4M shares with the PPS at $2.50 and still dropping? With almost no real communication or leadership coming from the company?
I have my own suspicions but don't particularly like them.
Can you clarify how that was for Adage's benefit? Not disputing, just trying to understand what dots you are connecting.
Speaking of some next level BS, I now wonder if the senior management of Auduro didn't always know their knock off of Yvonne Patterson's original LM platform was destined for failure?
I always wondered why, with such powerful Big Pharma backing, and hundreds of millions in cash why their senior management seemed to be in an absolute rush to dump every share they had that came out of lockup? Was it because they were trying to cash out as quickly as possible before the charade was exposed?
I tend to agree with this. It isn't the threat of dilution that I see as the main problem, it is the prolonged and extended uncertainty which leads to normal questions about ADXS leadership.
Any dilution event would likely bring enough money in that would get them past EU approval. It might finally mark a bottom I have been hoping to see for the last 6 months now.
Ironically, if I had a large short positon in ADXS, and I was already sitting on massive profits like these guys are, I think the submission for EU Approval would make me try to create one last big crash to cover as much as I could, knowing that the odds of approval were too great for me to allow my gains to evaporate.
I think we have seen the start of tremendous pressure on the PPS and they will push this as far as they can to see how low they can get it. As long as other major tutes stand aside and let it happen it will remain easy to push it down because they don't have to fight any volume.
Of course if ADXS issues a bunch of shares at this level they will be creating the crash event themselves, and that could be what the remaining short position is banking on.
The next 3 months will prove interesting.
Well stated. I don't blame DOC for me being stupid and not selling more shares at $25ish.
Ahhhh...thanks for that reminder. That definitely makes the timing more interesting.
That is what I suspect. Although I'm not sure it matters anymore? These guys are winning big. ADXS is about as helpless against these hedge funds as a guppy swimming with great whites. They need to just sell this thing. They don't have the resources...human or financial...to ever get this thing across the goal line. At least IMO.
Another 120+K shares went thru a couple minutes ago. PPS moved a penny.
Or Sarissa knows that ADXS already has a boyfriend (Adage) and there isn't room for 3 here?
Even if Denner thought there might be opportunity here in ADXS, it was probably always too complex and too messy to ever happen with Adage and Amgen as major shareholders already.
It was both. The 400+K wasn't one giant monolithic block. It looked like a flurry of large block buys and sells all within the span of a couple minutes. It appears the sells outnumbered the buys and that resulted in the drop from $2.70 to $2.63.
What that fully means or portends I can't say. But clearly the PPS action in ADXS is still weak.
Fair enough. But to be clear my comment about no change was after the first block or two at about 150K shares. There was no real change reflecting at that point.
As to the rest, ADXS and Lombardo have obviously not done enough yet to impress anyone. And the glass half empty argument is that some fund talked with Lombardo about his plans over the next 60 days and either exited after hearing them, or somebody just fired a shot across their bow pre-shareholders meeting to get something they want.
It's too early to tell yet, but this looks like some reshuffling happening? I can't tell yet.
"Slaughtered" was in September when they were able to weaponize about 500K shares at the opens and drop the PPS almost $1.50 in 2 days.
Today...so far at least...about 425+K resulted in a drop of .07 cents.
Just adding some perspective...not suggesting what should be concluded by those transactions.