Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Antex Biologics (ANTX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: F. Jay Abella, III who wrote (868)	4/23/1998 9:57:00 AM
From: RIP	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1476

I posted this to the aol board yesterday. ANTX Shareholders, I just had a 30-minute conversation with Terry. There are many topics to cover. The tone of her conversation was very sincere. She is looking forward to our visit for the annual meeting. (Mike, she is also setting up a tour of the lab facilities in the afternoon. I asked her this in a previous conversation and she said that it is still on. ) I will summarize the phone conversation below. This is not verbatim but I am sending Terry a copy and she will rectify any mistakes in my interpretation. Q. I noticed that there is only 4.4 M (warrants/shares diluted) for D.H. Blair vice the 7 M that would be expected. Where are they and who published this number in the Proxy (14A)? A. McKensie Partners published and will distribute the Proxy. They acquired that number from D.H. Blair (or a representative of) directly. I can only assume that a portion of the warrants was traded to other partners or brokerage houses directly. McKensie will send the Proxies. There are 150 shareholders of record (i.e. E*Trade counts as one) and 3500 shareholders to our knowledge. There were 2200 last year. This might have been the ANTXW that was trading last year with a $0.35-$0.50 spread that I talked to you about Mike. Some were traded. The highest volume was during the run-up in October. So D.H. Blair/Barrington only own 4.4 M warrants. Q. Was Barrington or the D.H. Blair brokers involved in the decision to reverse split the shares of common stock? A. No. This was purely a decision of the Board. However, I can tell you that Barrington was happy with the decision. I feel the Board may have been given a little encouraging advice while Barrington was visiting the company. Q. Why are the 95 M authorized shares not reversing? We shareholders are very concerned about possible dilution. A. ANTX felt that since last year we authorized an increase from 60 M to 95 M, then ANTX will maintain this number of authorized shares. Dr. Esposito has, and will continue, to go on record that it is by no means the intention of the company to issue any more shares in the near future. It is only required if the company wants it, say 10 years out, as an alternative financing option. I suggest we get this on record at the meeting. Granted, the company's burn rate is low and they should not have to sell stock to fund any near term operations. I am concerned about dilution. Terry assured me that she and other option holders feel the same. Q. The vote will be whether to reverse split. The actual number will be determined at a later date by the Board. Is this correct, and what is the Boards objective (despite what was said in the Proxy)? In other words, what are you (ANTX) actually trying to do? I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. A. We are very concerned that reversing the stock at, lets say 1/10, is not very desirable. The number is in there to set a range. If the stock goes to $4 before the decision we would not split it. All our options and shares would be reversed the same. We are definitely not trying to cause dilution. Getting listed will do several things for us. We can be looked at by institutions. The Dow Jones will cover our news releases. We have had problems in the past with them covering us because we are a BB stock. Also, we can more credibly tell our story to other PR firms, accepting us as a listed stock. I know other stocks have reversed on the way down to stay listed. We feel this is for a different situation and that soon we will have a story to tell and it will be noticed if we are listed IMO she sounded very sincere. Q. Speaking of "The Story", how about it??? Any Clinical news from the Navy? H-Pylori? Will the company hold news, timing stock moves? A. Absolutely not. It is not our intention to try and manipulate the stock price with news. We have never put out anticipated findings or hopeful thinking on any study. Our news is intended to be pure fact as we receive the information. We will release news as we get it and let the stock price do what it will. I feel it works for the benefit of all shareholders and we will continue to release news as we receive it. As far as clinicals, the Navy has a very large sample in their testing and it is taking longer than we had originally thought to receive the results. H-Pylori is being conducted in Baltimore and we hope to get news on that in the near future. I have always felt that one major benefit of this company is that they do not Hype their stock. Q. Have you heard of a company called Oravax (ORVX) that is working on an H-Pylori vaccine with Pasteur Merieux? A. Yes, their Clinical II has had some problems and several delays but they are working on a single protein and antigen .. (it got too technical to follow in a phone conversation). Essentially, it does not cover as broad a spectrum of proteins despite being an oral delivery vaccine like ANTX's. Q. Did you hear that AHP has an Otitis Media vaccine that is close to marketing? I know it is not against H. Influenzae? Yours is different, correct? A. Yes, I do. And you are correct that ours is attacking entirely different bacterium. Q. Is Phase I clinical trials still being conducted in Canada? A. Yes, in Canada. IMO the company is very sincere. Hope to see as many of you as possible at the meeting. Rip PS. The call was this morning and I just noticed on the PR Newswire ANTX's Reverse Stock Split (11:00 AM ESTD). Well, if you were too lazy to read the Proxy then this should finalize the recent bleeding in the stock price. I've accumulated more and hope it pays off. Seems like it shouldn't go much lower from here due to the reverse split.