A Tale of Two Identities

Our multiskilled board continues to draw attention, this time from Penton Sutcliffe who implies that Cellestis might be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder..."Perhaps there are now two Cellestis.."

TESTING TIMES

The stand-off between the directors of the biotech company Cellestis and a loyal band of shareholders opposed to plans to sell the firm through a scheme of arrangement has been enough to prompt one now retired captain of industry to fire off a fax to this column.

The former chief executive of the now Wesfarmers-owned Howard Smith, Penton Sutcliffe, has offered his two bob's worth against the proposal to sell the tuberculous diagnostic group to a German company, Qiagen, for $341.3 million.

''Perhaps there are now two Cellestis,'' said the former Toll Holdings and NIB director in his letter to CBD. He referred to the first Cellestis being the company whose chairman, Ron Pitcher, at last year's annual meeting said there remained ''substantial areas for market growth before we reach our final target of replacing the antiquated tuberculin skin test''.

''The very same Cellestis announced a 46 per cent increase in profit from operations on February 14 this year for the [half-year ending December 31],'' Sutcliffe said.

''Now three months later, there is another Cellestis which apparently … has challenges and risks ahead which must be considered once the independent expert's report is released.

''If the outlook has changed so dramatically for the company in the past three months, shareholders should be made aware of the circumstances now.''

Even if the scheme of arrangement does get voted through (which does not appear likely), Cellestis's co-founders Tony Radford and James Rothel will not have an easy time convincing their loyal band of shareholders that it is not all blue skies. The pair will each pocket $40 million if the deal proceeds.