Who dropped the ball? NOT RABIN... This toxic financing was NOT Rabin's doing. The guy who is most likely to "blame" passed away (Bill Caldwell). Further, I'm sure Caldwell got the best terms he could on the deals, but ACT was about to go BANKRUPT, so he had to take what he could get at the time in order to keep the company in business. If this financing hadn't been done, I suspect we wouldn't be having this conversation today because ACT would likely not be around.
I'm not the biggest fan of Rabin either as I expressed here before. I believe a more qualified candidate should be the CEO of ACT but listen, the guy has done nothing wrong since he became interim or permanent CEO. I challenge anyone throwing a fit right now to name ONE thing (and DDLS, Rabin took over as interim CEO in Dec 2010 when Caldwell died suddenly of a heart attack, since you stated previously that you didn't know when he took over as interim CEO, so there's your beginning point of reference) that Rabin has done wrong. He stepped in totally unexpectedly at a pivotal time in the company's history and kept things moving forward. He got the clinical trials started on time, and he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing: focusing on the clinical trials, not worrying about the day to day stock price. Despite that, on two occasions when warranted due large unexplained declines in the share price or events that could be misconstrued and lead to large share price declines, he's issued PR's clarifying the situation to stop the decline. He says as much as he can possibly say about the trials without getting himself in trouble w/ the FDA, so you need to read between the lines, it's pretty obvious that so far, based on the only public information available, things are going well, as evidenced by Rabin's comments and the unanimous approval by the DSMB for them to proceed with the injections for the next two patients in the first cohort.
The share price is going down and it sucks, but instead of trying to point fingers at the CEO without even knowing when the he took over, who was responsible for the financing, and the circumstances under which the financing was done, just deal with it. All the complaining and errant finger-pointing in the world isn't going to change that. That's the stock market. You're invested in a speculative penny stock. Fortunately, despite the disappointing recent share price action as well as the large number of shares outstanding, this is still one of the best risk/reward plays in the market, IMO. Take a deep breath and relax. I keep saying this: if the clinical trials prove what the animal models have shown, the share price will take care of itself. Is it guaranteed that the trials will go well? NO. But if they do, rest assured you'll be extremely happy you hung in there.
