Mpreorder, yes, I do agree that Lombardo will likely use and have access to as many internal resources, along with outside consultants, as needed to properly value the monetary component of any deal or sale.
I don't know the reason for the seeming treading water approach with Lombardo. I can't recall many, if any, companies in my 20+ years investing in any space that canned their CEO, named an interim guy, and then telegraphed that they aren't actively looking to replace the interim guy, or remove his interim label.
It seems to me you only do that if you know the company won't outlive the interim guy, or if you (the BOD) are considering making the interim guy permanent if he delivers on some conditions you gave him when he took over as interim. There may be other reasons I am missing, but those seem like the 2 most logical outcomes based on the timeline and current circumstances.
What I am curious about most is how the shorts react to Lombardo. If the message has went out to the short interest that Lombardo is going to deliver a big deal or deals, we should see short interest drop below 7M, on it's way to below 5M.
However, if shorts are just hedging their bets here, we won't see a big drop on 10/24, and we will know that the shorts could be taking the same approach as they did before Investor Day in June, where they went from 10M to 8M, just in case DOC announced something.
I guess the real question is who were those other 8M that obviously didn't feel any urgency to close out last June? Even at $8.50? I am thinking it was possibly Adage and crew who knew nothing was coming then.
So we may have gotten some hazy confirmation that Adage and crew represent approximately 6M to 7M of the 10M shorts, with the rest being retail shorts along with some smaller boutique hedge funds that are independent operators and aren't getting the memos from the big boy short cabal.
Short interest in ADXS won't ever go to 0. We just need to see it go (initially) under 7M, and that will give us our first real confirmation that the shorts believe Lombardo is going to deliver something.
I don't usually make Buy recommendations, as I haven't bought a single share since it was $8.75, but if I ever see short interest drop below 5M, I'll know for sure that the "time to cover message" has went out and it might be time to pick up some more shares.
