Abcam Share Discussion Threads

[apad] 19/4/2014 07:32

IC Since releasing half-year results and exposing sluggish Asian sales, medical-proteins supplier Abcam (ABC) has seen its share price crash, tumbling 12 per cent on the morning the figures were first reported. While underlying sales still managed to grow 9 per cent in Japan during the six months to December, this did not live up to analysts' expectations and even Abcam was surprised, having previously identified US sequestration as the bigger threat to growth last year. But efforts will still be made to consolidate the group's position in China this year, with a new office in Shanghai due to open. Chief executive Jonathan Milner has said he is focused on 'getting it right' in Asia and subsequently picked up an extra £1m worth of new shares in the group after seeing the price fall and present a cheaper entry point. Before dropping to its current price of 383p, the shares carried a pretty punchy rating of 27, prompting us to maintain our bearish stance and recommend offloading more of the stock. Considering emerging markets remain crucial to the future growth of Abcam and certain parts of Asia are failing to meet ambitious expectations, the shares probably have further to fall. Sell. HR

[apad] 17/4/2014 13:14

doubled holding. Gulp! apad

[richscotsman] 09/4/2014 20:40

Which makes my recent timing lousy but happy to ride out the bumps along the way!

[apad] 08/4/2014 16:24

PER 21. Much better timing than mine artibee. apad

[artibee] 08/4/2014 16:09

topped up at 346 - falling knife or what!

[artibee] 03/4/2014 09:55

at some point there will be a buying opportunity here!

[apad] 02/4/2014 17:24

130,000 apad

[apad] 25/3/2014 18:24

120,000 rich, it'll be interesting to see whether it holds. apad

[mirabeau] 24/3/2014 10:21

Milner's new venture (Horizon Discovery Ltd) float's this Thursday

[apad] 14/3/2014 15:44

Her timing's better than mine! apad Cambridge, UK: Abcam plc (AIM: ABC), a global leader in the supply of innovative protein research tools, was today notified that Mrs Roza Gounari, the wife of Dr Jonathan Milner, purchased 100,000 Ordinary Shares of 0.2p each in the Company on 13 March 2014 at a price of 407.24 pence per share and also purchased 400,000 Ordinary Shares of 0.2p each on 14 March 2014 at a price of 413.54 pence per share. Following these transactions, Dr Milner's total interest in the Company (including that of his spouse) has increased by 500,000 Ordinary Shares and is now 27,655,855 Ordinary Shares of 0.2p each, representing approximately 13.8% of the Company's issued share capital. This total interest is constituted as follows: Beneficial Interest 27,600,355 Non-Beneficial Interest: 55,500

[buywell2] 13/3/2014 07:36

410p now being tested Chartwise if 400p gets broken .... then the share price could have a try at 360p jan 2013 levels Has ABC got the cash to make an aquisition to turn the negative sentiment positive ? buywell2 5 Mar'14 - 04:51 - 1 of 3 edit 410p could now be tested chartwise methinks Any more bad news(comes in 3's they reckon) and the chart might look at circa 365p dyor

[richscotsman] 13/3/2014 07:28

Yep.... He plugged it in the results... Does it have any patents?

[mirabeau] 11/3/2014 20:21

Another one of Jon. Milner's bio-investments comes to the market at the end of March. Horizon Discovery Ltd - genomic translation specialist or as some call it 'patient in a test-tube' tools

[apad] 09/3/2014 09:37

300,000 shares sale on friday might have turned the dead cat bounce into a dead cat splat - one surely needs a little bounce for irony to cut in? apad

[apad] 09/3/2014 09:30

rich, fancy joining me in keeping a sporadic record? I haven't been tracking the products data (do you have a feel for this?). Sales has been on 110,000 for too long. An increase in products by licensing is part of the model. But why should CovalAb (Its rabbit based magic chemical neighbour) license ABC? So why haven't I been tracking Products! Date: 9/3/14 Products: 129,600 Sales: 110,000 Jobs: 43 apad

[buywell2] 09/3/2014 05:17

I like this ''the need for management to know their technology from soup to nuts'' not sure where it came from , but assuming it is repast related then I would have thought the need for management to know their technology from soup to brandy or perhaps maybe port; would have read better , knowing their nuts could be construed by many in a mammalian context, for example the family cebidae. re brokers comments the chart will speak with more authority and sense, thus far we have the dead cat scenario Remember Healthcare Enterprise Group ..... HCEG This is what was and still is on the thread .... HCEG Information Robin Gilbert (Numis Securities) Buy note - 17.Nov.05 Healthcare Enterprise (20p) Buy Target price 40p The company brought forward its interims, coming out with an operating loss of £2.1m (including provisions) for the six months to August, and the departure of two directors, the Chairman and the Finance Director from the executive board. This was because of unexpected problems at the Healthcare distribution business at Warrington, partly relating to the integration of the Crest Medical business, and management at this level has also been removed. There are several issues at the Warrington site which are now being dealt with, and which should be relatively straightforward to put right. Inventory levels (of £3.1m) have not been controlled sufficiently, nor have debtors (of £6.1m), and both need to be brought down by perhaps £2m together. The merger brought together two computer systems, which have been poorly integrated, though this is being put right. Also numbers employed have not been controlled sufficiently, though changes have also been implemented here. Net debt amounted to £3.2m at end August, and has come down a bit since then. With the group's bankers being supportive, and the issues already responding to treatment, we expect this debt level to come down rapidly in coming months. The board has been top-heavy, and not functioned at all well in terms of controlling the business, and outlining the prospects. Further changes need to be made here, with the group needing to find new executive directors, as well as management for the subsidiaries. Considerable demands have been put on very few people, trying to develop an exciting product range on a global basis. Here prospects are still very promising, despite regulatory delays and the lengthy and unpredictable time in trying to close deals. Its surface cleaner, Ebiox is still being considered by major multi-nationals for significant roles, including the cleaning of surgical instruments, pharmaceutical clean rooms, dental water-lines etc. Likewise, Optiscope, its disposable endoscope, is likely to attract substantial interest in coming months. Now at this very compressed valuation, the distribution business should be capable of sales of £20-25m in the medium term, and profits of £3-4m. At a market capitalisation of £30m, little value is being given for the new products. For the year, a breakeven position appears feasible, with profits of perhaps £10m (4.4p) for 2006/7 (£3m from distribution and £7m from Ebiox). On a shareprice of 20p, the shares are on a multiple of 4.5 times this figure. On a nominal target price of 40p (9 times eps), reflecting the considerable uncertainties, the shares are a Buy. http://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=8402339 check out how the Numis Buy target panned out www.insidermedia.com/insider/north-west/58075-healthcare-enterprise-enters-liquidation Interesting that a product I liked of HCEG called Ebiox , the sales of which were growing under a useless management team and BOD even as the company slid into liquidation , now seems to be doing ok www.ebiox.co.uk/

[richscotsman] 06/3/2014 07:27

Buy into Abcam as share price drops, says Numis Antibody supplier Abcam (ABC.L) has been upgraded from 'hold' to 'buy' by Numis analyst Charles Weston. Weston placed a target price of 510p on the shares despite a sharp drop in the share price earlier in the week as it revealed sluggish Japanese growth despite the Japanese government investing in research. 'We are upgrading our recommendation to 'buy', from 'hold', following the sharp fall in the share price [on Wednesday morning],' he said. 'In our view little has changed in the fundamental investment thesis for Abcam and history has taught us that periods of weakness in its share price are the right time to buy into its highly defensive business model.' Weston said he 'expected margins and cash generation to remain high due to the characteristics of the product and Abcam's digital platform' and that management's investment in new growth initiatives has 'yet to translate to accelerating growth rates, which could start to be delivered over the next six-12 months'.

[apad] 05/3/2014 09:16

Milner quote 2011: A successful company should stick to what its good at and do more of it. What we have found and are excited about is that we can use our existing business model to do what we call OEM-type deals for these kinds of products. So we do non exclusive agreements with suppliers, get these products on board and away we go. But there are a whole load of other products where we can't do that. There might be companies that have ranges of products that would fit well into our catalogue but we can't get them through this model, the only way we could get them is by buying the whole company and bolting them on. So we want to buy product, pipeline and capability to feed the model - that's what excites us about this model, that it's so simple and we can build it out.

[apad] 05/3/2014 08:24

My take is that the important financial metric out of the interim is that the increase in staff will impact profits at these growth rates, which is why the share price fell so much on the announcement of the interims. As an "owner" I see this expenditure as vital to becoming dominant in a fragmented market. ABC's growth is dependent on increasing its market share in a market that is strongly dependent on government spending. The second string to this bow is, as buywell the second indicates, acquisitions. These acquisitions need to fit in with ABC's "postal" business model - there was some criticism of the last acquisition on this basis. I do not know how many sensible propositions are out there, which is where, rich's "trust in the management" kicks in. The smaller tech. component of my portfolio is predicated on the need for management to know their technology from soup to nuts and ABC fits snugly into this category. All of this I am comfortable with, but I do not have a clear idea about ABCAM's standing amongst its peers in this fragmented market, or the rate of change of its market share. Based on this narrative, my eleventh purchase will be at 08:05 on the morning of an acquisition announcement, iff the share price remains depressed. apad

[buywell2] 05/3/2014 04:51

410p could now be tested chartwise methinks Any more bad news(comes in 3's they reckon) and the chart might look at circa 365p dyor

[buywell2] 05/3/2014 04:36

Looks like ABC will have to back on the acquisition trail soon A smaller company growing it's presence in ASIA , including Japan and China would seem to be the target Asian growth slows for AbcamShares in medical-proteins supplier Abcam (ABC) crashed 12 per cent in early trading after it revealed sluggish Japanese growth during the six months to December. Despite a hefty government stimulus implemented in Japan last April, the distribution of research funds has been slow. Underlying sales rose 9 per cent in the region, lower than the expected double-digit growth. This has caught Abcam off-guard. Sequestration in the United States and spending cuts from the US National Institute of Health had posed a bigger threat going into the first half. But underlying revenues still grew 7 per cent in the Americas, which is important given that the region accounted for 43 per cent of the group's catalogue sales. Europe, the Middle East and Africa also managed good underlying growth of 10 per cent despite changes to distribution partnerships as a result of the Epitomics acquisition. But emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region disappointed analysts with growth of just 15 per cent growth. Abcam will try to reinvigorate its presence there in the second half. A new office in Shanghai and a consolidated distribution network will help the group 'get it right' in China, says chief executive Jonathan Milner. ShareCast News Abcam trims dividend plans as interims disappoint Tue, 4th Mar 2014 15:59 Half-year results from AIM-listed antibody supplier Abcam show sales growth slowing markedly as global research funding remained depressed. The life science research support services company took total revenues of £61.9m in the six months to end-December, growth of 8.1% that compared badly with the 28.3% increase seen in the corresponding period and the 25% growth enjoyed in the full year 2013 results. Americas growth of 7.2% was a robust performance but was offset by weaker growth in Japan. With gross margin improving to 70.9% adjusted operating profit increased by 4.8% to £22.8m. Abcam, which had been paying a dividend of 40% of adjusted PBT, said it had decided to reduce that in order to invest in marketing, and will only be seeing 10% year-on-year dividend growth, or 9.8% to 2.13p in this interim period. Chief Executive Jonathan Milner said: "During the first half we made significant progress with our organic growth initiatives, including the appointment of key recruits, changes to our organisational structure and IT improvements with the intention of driving innovation and better serving our customers." Analysts at Canaccord Genuity retained their 'sell' and said: "Increased investment in marketing, e-commerce and operational infrastructure is expected to result in pressure on operating margins during the next 12 months. "We believe that upgrades, historically routine from Abcam, are unlikely in the near term. This, in addition to the slowing growth rate and a short-term weakening of cash flow, makes it difficult for us to justify the premium valuation." Shares in Abcam were down 12% to 421p at close on Tuesday.

[richscotsman] 04/3/2014 22:38

My first top up in a couple of years..... I trust mgmt to look after my money here. On the surface of it not as stellar results but loads of exciting potential IMHO!

[apad] 04/3/2014 22:19

I'm a bit shocked to find that I have now bought 10 times rich. apad

[richscotsman] 04/3/2014 18:52

Well played apad.... I was delayed in buying as I had to transfer some money around but got in a little bit higher... Great day for a top up!