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Message: A very good conversation with our new VP of IR....

I had almost an hour long conversation with our new VP of IR this afternoon/evening and I came away very impressed.   I didn't learn anything new, I wasn't expecting to, but I felt like I was talking to a true professional and an individual with a lot of passion for his job.

He's only been in this role for a little over a month, and after I enumerated a number of communciation failures from the past year he said that he couldn't or wouldn't comment on his predessor's performance.   He did however indicate that he is in the process of going over what is currently in place as far as vendors and such are concerned with an eye to ensuring the company is getting the best bang for thier buck (my words not his).

I mentioned how the news about the seeking of a US listing, how it was tweeted by the corporate twitter account twice, once on the 31st of July in English and the following day again in Chinese.  Given Hepalink's investment I told him how I thought this was a good idea and asked if it would continue...I remarked that there's been a few tweets since but nothing again in Chinese.  From his answer it  would appear that this is something handled by a vendor, and based on what boxes are checked off when they issue the news, that determines the scope and breadth of dissemination.  This seems to be what he is in the process of reviewing.

I then brought up the upcoming Rodman Renshaw conference in NYC, the one the company skipped out on last year.  I also shared Don's less than stellar depiction of that event when rationalizing  why they didn't attend....Don told me that he was  working on the HL financing that retired the old loan/loc that started as the Citibank loan and that missing R&R was no big deal.

I asked Mr. Moon how much all these investor conferences cost in terms of airfare, accomodation, meals and other sundry expenses. I guessed each one must cost several thousand dollars...and that perhaps the money might be better spent elsewhere.

He defended the value of these conferences, explaining that some well heeled investors want to look a member of senior management in the eye, going so far as to say that for some its part of their DD.  That made sense to me, its  a big part of the reason I went to Toronto in May for the B&B conference.  Its also 'part of the game' I suspect....like going to the company Christmas party if you will.  As a publicly traded company, to a degree its part of the drill so to speak. Mr. Moon didn't say that directly, but I believe its a point we were talking around.  If you want to swim in the public markets you have to tip your hat to the sharks a bit.

I went from there to  talking about the Ellis Martin Report, a radio broadcast out of Florida that airs on the Voice of America  network and reaches millions.  Our IR VP has a proposal from this firm, the fee would be somewhere between $25 and $50K depending on the package and length of coverage.  The door was not closed, but I consider it very unlikely based on our conversation.  I was told the budget for such promotion is....he paused and I offered the word "thin" which he agreed with. 

I also mentioned the new website and how it had included a link to the company's facebook page.  I told him I don't care if Resverlogix has a Facebook presence or not....but that if they do, to make it look sharp and professional....not like this:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Resverlogix/1413266938896371

I don't expect we'll be seeing the company creating a facebook  page, and  the above link is merely generated by Facebook based on people having searched for it.

We talked at length about the capital markets and what a cess pool it can be.   I was  told that the number of promotional outfits getting in touch with the company to pitch their services....he didn't give a number but its tons.  I said there are about 10,000 publicly traded companies in NA and likely two or three thousand IR promotion/consultant firms all promising to grab the attention of investors.

Bottom line impression,  Paul Moon strikes me as a guy who could talk a dog off a meat truck...he is extremely articulate and very quick.  He also conveyed what I believe to be genuine excitement combined with a very professional demeanour.

Early returns are very positive in my eyes....I just hope he lives up to my expectations going forward and that corporate communications reflect the attention to detail that I trust exists on the scientific side.   

 

 

 

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