I received a call back from Tom Newberry...
(The fact that he called me back is an indication that I own too many shares...)
The call was informative. His key comments included:
1) Nothing has changed from a strategic perspective.
2) They are continuing partnership discussions but felt it was important to not be negotiating with a "dry" (cash poor)balance sheet. This financing buys them time to negotiate on a solid footing.
3) The delay in the partnership process at the end of last year was driven by their talking to more potential partner candidates, late in the process, than had been expected.
4) The financing was contingent upon their getting good top line results. While this indeed happened, the fact that the results got pushed back, and we ended up in a bear market, hurt the financing valuation.
There was nothing on the call to lead me to believe that partner discussions are in trouble. In fact I got the other sense, that there was increased opportunity due to interest from multiple potential partners. The only downside was the incremental time required to work through the process.