I have a good-sized position in this company and am obviously holding a significant paper loss at this point. I am not here to tout the company, but would like to post my reasons for hanging in at this point. I have done a good amount of DD and here are the facts that I keep falling back on (in no particular order).
1) The technology has been around since the late 90s, multiple patents have been filed and all the testing so far has been positive. This represents an investment of time and money by the researchers and those involved in funding it at the university level.
2) Investors. Are the "smart" money or not.
EFO Holdings. This is the private equity / venture capital firm that purchased Platinum Research. The firm, located in Dallas, has been around since the 90s and my contacts in Texas have told me that they have met a number of the people there and consider them "solid citizens". The firm was created by one of the founders of First Data (Esping) and his son runs it.
Newlight Capital. This firm came in after EFO and provided venture debt funding. Newlight has also been around and the principals have good pedigrees. The significant fact here is that debt funding is more conservative and their fallback is on the assets of the company...it's intellectual property...the patents.
The upshot here is that you have qualified people investing in the company not just once by one company, but over a significant period of time by multiple companies -- which means that the company must be hitting its milestones. Each of these investors has the ability to really kick the tires. When technology is involved, they will hire independent consultant in that field to evaluate the feasibility and the market potential of the tech.
3) Mgmt and BOD. This speaks for itself and it was the fact that probably caught all of our attention in the first place. (FYI: Pineda is the CEO of the shell co and I do not consider her mgmt as she is being replaced when the Contribution Agmt is executed). All members of mgmt have solid backgrounds in the industry...they would not be wasting their careers for this amount of time for a subpar technology or a pump & dump scheme. The Board is outstanding and have reputations to protect. They have no reason to risk it with a "scheme" that would add a small amount of compensation at a high cost to their name.
With a development stage company, you have to look at the tech, the team, and the investors involved. Heck, I even checked the accounting firm that PLRO is using in Dallas...it's a small but reputable firm as well.
Do I know why the stock is declining (at $1.20 now)? No. Does it give me pause that somebody knows something? Yes, but there is no PUBLIC info or other fundamental info that warrants the drop. In addition to the reasons above, I have checked all the SEC docs and I do not smell anything that has made me think there was a rat involved. My guess is that people who saw the publicity jumped in for a quick profit w/o doing their DD and are bailing as their paper losses shock them more each day. The volume generated was from PR. It was in Jan/Feb and it drove a lot of volume and the price spiked. The PR has stopped and volume subsided. As people took profits the stock dropped fast, scared money ran and continues to now. Unless there is more PR, we will probably not see any upside movement until the shareholders meeting is over (Apr 12th).
I did get through to the company several weeks back and spoke briefly with a member of the mgmt team. Given the regs on the quiet period, I obtained little substantive info, but the person did say that they had been waiting a long time for this and were excited.
If anyone has addl info pro or con I would appreciate seeing it.
