Replies to post #336456 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[kabunushi]

It impossible for me to understand Woodford's lapses. He comes across to me as some kind of idiot savant. He seems to have been a very successful investor yet with NWBO his actions are totally incongruous with having any kind of investment expertise. On the one had did he not have any idea what he was getting into? And on the other, once he's having doubts and/or problems with LP, what did he think the effect of his SEC filings breaking with her would be? He must not have had a clue what the shorts would do with that to the detriment of the value of his investment in NWBO and/or he had an ego thing going on that somehow he was so important he wanted to broadcast his negotiating position vs LP to the whole world. I just don't get it.

OTOH part of the dynamic of how fast the stock collapsed is the fact that there had been reasonably robust investment flows into biotech which dried up very suddenly. Everybody got caught by surprise by that and it exacerbated NWBO's problem and the vulnerability they had to the shorts after Woodford had broken with them so publically.

[biosectinvestor]

1) public funds can’t have board positions or control portfolio companies, that is against the rules;
2) if and i think he did have a private equity fund that may have had some equity also, it is likely that fund did not have enough equity to merit such a position.

While people may think he was “stupid”, I think he generally understood investing, just not this segment. Cell therapies until Car-T became a bubble, have been an area that has had challenges getting to market, and immune therapies also, as we know, had issues. I think he just did not fully grasp the challenges. I also doubt he did not understand the relationship of Linda and Toucan and Cognate to the company. That is highly unlikely.

The odd coincidence of his investment and the “report”, that sensationalized already disclosed details from financial reports made him look bad if he did not follow-up. Or it may have been a tactic to force change that could get him what he wanted, but it backfired on him. Actually, I think the latter is the case. That it was perhaps a pressure tactic. I think it was always a question of what connection his investment and that report may have had, if any. I suspect they were not disconnected. It is just that the hand pulling the string had to be invisible, so that he could still appear to be a “friendly”. Or so he thought.

He may have thought he could create pressure for a quick merger or buyout, and then it backfired on him. I think he thought there would be a liquidity event if he could get in and have influence. And I think he thought he could buy and then create pressure with that report, from some hidden “attacker”. But I think Linda resisted because that was never the plan, and the whole situation was suspicious. And then Woodford’s scenario went off course, as far as he was concerned, and the rest is history.

Some of these fund managers think they are literal masters of the universe and it is their interventions that create their profits. That is frequently not the case.