Hi, FMK,
When I first read your post, I took your questions to me to be rhetorical and unnecessary to answer. The question about rating "the company's chances for success," however, set me to thinking that an answer might be useful after all if only to clarify for myself my own notions about the various outcomes Valence and its current shareholders might face. In my "balanced opinion," the company's chances for success in both the near and far terms are decent, in contrast to my hope, which is that their chances are good if not great. My balanced opinion (:-)) assigns subjective probabilities of 25% likelihood to failure within the next 5 months, 30% likelihood to decent success over the next few years, 30% likelihood to good success, and 15% likelihood to great success over that time period. My balanced opinion is not the same as my hope. I am now drafting an explanation of this and will send it to you by private message. It's too long for a post.
Before returning to that, however, let me dismiss your first question, which seemed the more rhetorical of the two. While I have high respect for the importance of the well-considered bearish arguments, I do not believe Valence management raised money only to keep their jobs, or that they do not have (or are not at least close to) a viable product. Such claims by some posters strike me, at best, as specious if not mean-spirited. They do not seem to realize their pose of sophisticated skepticism mocks itself.
Likewise, I do not believe Dawson bought 950k shares just to make an impression. I am sure he hopes to profit from them through Valence's success. Since the purchase evidently involves a non-recourse loan, however, I withhold all further judgement of the matter because I do not understand all the nuances of such a loan in bankruptcy circumstances.
Regards, lws |
