I agree. The non-combustible nicotine business is growing quickly and all the big tobacco companies are big on new nicotine formats. This tech could be big money for these companies. With COVID-19 thrown in as well, the need to move away from combustible nicotine has never been greater.
In a royalty situation, using what I figure would be low ball figures, oral nicotine sales across the world could easily break 1B a year. If Altria got 20% of 1B a year, 200M and Lexaria got royalties of 5% of Altria's sales, that would still net Lexaria 10M a year. That doesn't include money Lexaria could make from other tobacco companies.
If Altria bought the tech they could be selling it themselves and licensing it to other tobacco companies. That could be worth millions.
A buyout of the subsidiary would also stop Lexaria licensing to other companies. That's worth a huge amount of money. Lets say another 5M -10M a year.
IMO a current fair market price for the nicotine subsidiary including the applicable patents should be somewhere around 200M - 250M.
I hope Chris holds out for the true value of this subsidiary.
Something to consider is the current share price does not come close to reflecting the fair market price for such a valuable technology. Bunka will have to be careful though, not to play hardball too hard!