Good morning all, and welcome to week two of A New Day for Titan! So to speak, of course.
A few thoughts and observations as things have been playing out...
NASDAQ is nice to have, but has very little to do with the trajectory of Titan based on recent announcements. I hope we are two weeks away from the threat of de-listing but I also think there is way too much emphasis on it. If it supposedly opens doors to new forms of financing, then why has it not yet worked? I am not hugely concerned with de-listing except that an announcement of de-listing will ding our share price (temporarily) despite everything else going on in the background.
As for Medtronic's plans, I have no personal knowledge or insight, but a couple guesses. First, Hugo does not appear to be a substantial improvement on Trixie's Senhance system, which still isn't making any real inroads into the marketplace. Maybe they want Titan's patents to make Hugo better - better hand controls, patented camera wash system, maybe even snake arms deployed through their numerous separate ports. Who knows... Alternately they might be looking to develop Enos Plus - Titan's current robot with a third arm to be deployed through the single port. Maybe some other variation, like Dual port - the single port two-armed or three-armed Enos plus a side extension for a third robotically controlled arm in place of a manually operated trochar. Whatever the case,my take from what I have read is that Titan will continue on their existing path while Medtronic does some additional or alternate development work with their licensed patents. My guess is that once FDA approval is either in sight or achieved, the buyout happens and Medtronic will eventually offer two or three models.
If a buyout is largely a stock deal and we end up owning shares of MDT, that's fine with me because their future growth should be substantial with competitive robotic offerings - the stability of Medtronic with the growth potential of a startup business!
I do like the little history lessons popping up here lately (e.g. DeviceRep's re-post and other related notes). Who knows how long Medtronic has been part of this equation, or even which management team put it together! It could serve to explain a few other burning questions.
One of those questions is "Why won't management buy shares on the open market?" It would seem that we might now know the answer. If they have been coordinating with Medtronic all along, they couldn't buy with their insider information. And if there is still more to the story which they haven't announced publicly, then they still hold insider information which prevents them from buying.
THEREFORE... If they do not buy shares for themselves, it most likely means that there is more going on behind the scenes, most likely with Medtronic, and that we are in for a really fun ride upward! If they buy shares now, it might be time for me to sell mine because that would mean they are left to pure speculation and not buying based on any specific knowledge of Titan's future.
Happy Monday to all, and Go Titan!
AI
