Ocean Power Continues to Ignore Small Individual Investors Instead Focusing on Institutional Investors Who Own Relatively Little OPT Stock

EASTON, PA / ACCESSWIRE / February 27, 2024 / Paragon Technologies, Inc. ("Paragon"), a diversified holding company, and the largest shareholders of Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (NYSE American:OPTT), ("Company") ("OPT"), is dismayed at how OPT's Board and CEO continue to disregard individual shareholders and instead favor institutional investors who own relatively little OPT shares.

"By our estimate institutional investors, in total, own about 4-5% of OPT, while the remaining 95% of shares are held by individual investors," notes Sham Gad, Chairman of Paragon Technologies. "Yet in announcing its upcoming earnings release OPT now wants to hear from and speak to portfolio managers."

"What about listening to the individual investors who have funded OPT with tens of millions of dollars from new equity sales that have funded OPT's growing losses and paid for growing board and executive compensation?" asks Gad. "And in return those shareholders have been rewarded with a 90% decline in share price as a result of an incompetent and failing strategy by the Board and CEO."

The stark reality is that with a market cap of approximately $17 million, institutional investors are likely not interested in OPT. Analysts have nothing to say about a business that has had the disastrous financial failings that OPT has had over the years.

The stock market is going up. OPT shares are going down. And because OPT's CEO and Board know they have failed shareholders every single day, they ignore them.

Perhaps the most egregious indication of the little to no regard OPT has for its individual investors is the robo-calls and spam-like emails OPT is annoying shareholders with everyday asking them to vote for their failed slate of candidates.

CEO Stratmann cannot take the time to personally call his individual shareholders and talk about his supposed "working" strategy and explain why he and the board deserve their vote after failing them for years.

But OPT is more than happy to chat to institutional investors who invest other people's money and are not feeling the financial pain that individual investors have suffered.

Instead of working constructively with Paragon - OPT's single largest shareholder - to reinvigorate OPT, the Board continues to spend millions putting up roadblocks to deny shareholders the opportunity to benefit from Paragon's nominees' experience, ideas, and track record. As Paragon has stated from day one, our sole objective is to drive a sustainable increase in shareholder value and we remain open to working existing directors in order to put ALL OPT shareholders first.