I'm finding the gloom here a bit excessive at this point.
I've been here since the beginning; I have a big loss like most of you--I felt the extreme optimism was excessive before, and now I feel this crankiness is also excessive. I myself have been angered by company behavior, and have vented the anger quite directly. The company has lost all of its credibility. But it really is a small company trying to gain a foothold in a large market, albeit in a difficult economic period, and one real contract will provide revenue and stabilize the price. The problem for me is that I feel I know less than ever before what the company is, and has... The price at present reflects everyone's worst suspicions, which is natural after such a large failure. But in the midst of this uncertainty I feel there is still room for a more sympathetic reading of the present: a young company very full of itself--on account of its precipitous rise in price, on account of its brushes (near misses?) with real success, on account of its moments of (incipient?) official recognition (Germany?)--commits errors in management and public relations which result in an extreme pricing and confidence disaster. But it is possible--again I am suggesting what I believe is a just-as-possible and not so charitable reading of the situation--that one real revenue-producing contract is not so far off or impossible to achieve, and would substantially stabilize the situation. And how will we know that such a contract is for real? By really putting out the financials after all the ostensibly necessary amendations are completed. The story about their securities lawyer really could be for real; it doesn't strain my credulity. Becoming a reporting company is in my opinion the only real way to restore our confidence, for it places a high accountability on the filers. Management knows that. Jimmy is the largest shareholder after all, and he has also seen his net worth fluctuate considerably, and probably has real incentive to improve the situation.
Back when all of this blew up, my next greatest fear was that they wouldn't even be at the NYC show. But that at least happened, such as it was (who knows the real effect of Jimmy's appearance there in all of those meetings?).
I don't mean to imply confidence on my part; no, I just think there is a little room for hope just as there is room for pessimism. After all, it is uncertainty in the first place which has caused the latter. It could be nothing more than a young, publicly inept (formerly publicly inept?), company which has really screwed up, but still has a good shot.
Howard Gordon |
