We believe Sun's management is not willing to engage in serious discussions with Shareholders and is not willing to have constructive discussions about the huge discount to intrinsic value the shares have been trading.
We've made concerted efforts to reach out to management and address the undervaluation of Sun's shares. Following numerous attempts to connect with Investor Relations, we managed to arrange an online meeting in October 2023 with the company's representatives to understand what management is actually doing to resolve this undervaluation. During this meeting, we discussed Sun's business operations and management's strategies for CLBT. We emphasized the importance of transparency with investors and urged the company to openly communicate management's intentions regarding its holdings in CLBT.
On November 27, 2023, we sent a follow-up letter to Mr. Utsumi. In the letter, we emphasized the need for management to enhance shareholder value and drew attention to the undervaluation of Sun's shares. Additionally, we requested that management consider distributing excess cash including non-operational assets, and shares of CLBT to shareholders. Despite our efforts, we didn’t receive a response to our letter for ca. 2 months.
On January 21, 2024, we sent additional letters to both the board of directors and four of its outside directors. These letters emphasized the lack of response from Mr. Utsumi regarding our proposal. In addition, we requested interviews with the outside directors, whose responsibility is to ensure that the perspectives of shareholders are accurately represented, but as of today, none of them have responded to our letter.
On February 21, 2024, Sun released a press statement directed at shareholders, which we believe is a response to our letters. Management wrote that it is very difficult to distribute the shares of CLBT as a dividend in kind and would not be an appropriate method to increase shareholder value. We have provided our analysis of Sun's response.
On February 28, 2024 we sent our reply letter to Sun with our view on Sun's position. On March 1, 2024, we received an email stating that Sun's official statements regarding the shares of CLBT and the difficulties of distributing them as dividends in kind, are based on opinions of external law firms and security companies, and therefore there is nothing that they can do or add to the official statement. Furthermore, concerning our request to discuss the situation with the external board members, we were advised via email that it is unlikely that we will find it worthwhile. A steep contrast to the company's public statement regarding its engagement to enhance shareholder value, which stated " We... would be willing to discuss such measures with you...".