Still messing around in the detail of the 10K. Here is something that is interesting:
Through June 30, 2013 Aspire had acquired 2,712,208 shares garnering $4,382,000 for CTIX. That is an average of $1.615 per share.
From July 1, 2013 through Sept 6, 2013 Aspire acquired another 1,800,000 shares resulting in proceeds of $3,200,000 for CTIX. That is an average of $1.777 per share.
The weighted average cost of those Aspire share acquisitions is $1.68/share. Those are attractive buys for Aspire given the time period when they occurred. But that does not include the shares provided at the start of the agreement. Those were 336,625 at no cost (a commitment fee) and 112,208 shares for $100,000. With these additions the share count is 4,961,041 at an average share price of $1.54. The total proceeds to CTIX is $7,682,000.
Aspire has (or has at one time or another controlled) 4,961,208 shares, or close to 5% of the float. We have no way of knowing how many they still have. They may have contributed to weakness by selling some at key times. Most of the time the share value has been well above where it is now, for a good stretch over $2. They might have taken some profits, or as I speculate below, contributed to weakness in another way.
So how might have Aspire played this and how might they do so going forward? Here is one possibility: they can exert quite a bit of pressure on the stock to get a low price when Leo goes to get $ from them and may have done this for their acquisitions up to now. They need only sell 100 shares at a time to negate big buys that might drive the price. It is always the last price that drives the ask and it is not weighted for volume. It is easy to move it down with 100 share sells at the market. They know Leo needs the $ so that would be my strategy if I was them. Leo is able to dictate when they buy but Aspire can hold the price down for a long time with that many shares. Then when they get all their shares cheap they can let the price run again.
They know the potential of CTIX. They can sell a pittance of shares at a time to get the price where they want it and then wait for Leo to call.
I have no problem with the Aspire deal. I just have been trying to figure out the price action. There is no way to get from here to there for nothing. But in my view those Aspire folks are doing just fine on their end of the bargain. As things move forward it is my firm belief that we will too. The good news is there is not that much more of the Aspire funding left so this will play out soon. Once Aspire has their position complete (assuming they want to hold) they will want the price to run. The flip side(not bad, just necessary) is that something will need to replace it.
Any of the big catalysts would end all of this.
These are all speculations on my part but seem consistent with some of the anemic and slow downward drift in the price action. Comments?
