It is exceptionally rare for us to make a public statement in the manner we do here in relation to a recent corporate client that we had backed in the case of Widecells Research. However, such is the sheer incredulity at the 3 RNS’s put out today that we are galvanised into action.

In essence, management of WDC have effectively entered into a de facto death spiral with no bottom on the issuance price. The actions of management in even proposing this let alone their lending their OWN shares to facilitate it is without a doubt one of the craziest (at best) or utterly naive arrangements I have come across in recent years. Joao Andrade and his fellow BoD members should resign forthwith. I repeat that it defies belief that they are lending their own stock to facilitate the short sale of shares by the convertible loan provider (also known as European High Growth Opportunities) – in essence WDC management are accelerating the throwing under a bus of their own shareholders, particularly those that facilitated the placing in June to bail them out of a disaster of their own making.

We are not prepared to stand by and have been active buyers of the stock this morning with a view to calling an EGM at the earliest opportunity to:

(1) Remove the current slate of directors and

(2) Halt the further issuance of stock beyond the current £635k that they have already taken. Incidentally, together with the raise in June we believe the company actually has adequate capital with the £635k to see through the next 12 months from an audit sign off basis.

We invite all decent sized holders to contact us at info@alignresearch.co.uk at the earliest opportunity so we can call the EGM and attempt to upend this nonsense for existing shareholders. Recall what happened to the stock price of Tern in recent months when this type of financing was terminated. If we are successful in halting this arrangement we believe the upside for existing shareholders could be material but it requires ACTION and not inertia. As stated, email us with your details and holding size so we avoid one of the most tragic situations seen in the small cap arena this year.

R Jennings

• Widecells