Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy, and I think

Unfortunately, hope is not a strategy, and I think that’s woodenbear’s point. NP has failed to close deals in the past - they “fell apart at the end, to quote WB - and as a result we’ve had to go back to the dilutive well. I don’t want to have to “hope” that NP closes this - I want to believe that here’s a viable plan B. Unfortunately, management has made decisions along the way that have decimated the share price, which leaves them with fewer palatable funding options and thus less leverage in negotiations. That’s why some folks’ attitudes have turned more negative sounding - we gave the management style the benefit of the doubt for a long, long time, and thus far the (reasonable) naysayers like Lawman have been proven correct.

If NP can close this deal, much will be forgiven. But the fear of some of my fellow investors has always been that the insistence on winning the game with a home run in the last inning, as you put it quite aptly, would end up costing the company quite a bit of value if appropriate leverage could never be established. We’re now at an extremely crucial point. If NP can’t close this deal and we need to raise significant amounts of funds otherwise, their fears will essentially come to fruition.

Nobody questions the science, but the execution is not beyond reproach in the least.