They are reasonable, but they have also been explained. These were the shares that certain major share holders gave up to form that pool of shares that Joe controlled, which he could use to make acquisitions. These are shares left over now that Joe is not actively making additional acquisitions at this time.

Now that they have been retired, they will go into the authorized share count (750,000,000). 43.9 million are outstanding so the retired shares become part of the remaining 706.1 million that the board has authorized. They can be reused the by company in the future if they are needed. So nobody actually continues to own the shares - they are just part of the resources GNBT has access to if they need them.