Ekf Diagnostics Share Discussion Threads

[wan] 16/2/2021 18:04

Well, if it's a sub-market of a recognised stock exchange, then indirectly it must be recognised, but irrespective of whether AIM is a recognised stock exchange or not, does the announcement actually imply that AIM is a recognised Stock exchange? Not in my reading, as the brackets are used to separate off information that's not essential to the meaning of the rest of the sentence -

365 days following admission to trading on AIM (or another recognised stock exchange) of the issued share capital of Trellus; or
if the issued share capital of Trellus is not admitted to trading on AIM (or another recognised stock exchange) within two years of the date that the Dividend is settled, two years from the date that the Dividend is settled (the “Lock-up Period”).
(END)

So, it is stating specifically admission to AIM, and the brackets are being used for information that is not part of the main content i.e. or perhaps another stock exchange that recognised as being such.

Personally, I am not going to lose one iota of sleep over it (I don't get much anyway!) you will note the use of brackets ;-)

[sharw] 16/2/2021 17:06

No, it is not just the Exchange but the market as well that is or is not recognised (by HMRC). So the main market is recognised but AIM isn't - otherwise you would pay stamp duty on purchases there. This is where the announcement is wrong - it implies AIM is an exchange but it is not - it is a market of an exchange. So LSE is recognised and the main market is listed as such but not AIM:

[wan] 16/2/2021 11:50

Boadicea...My understanding is that AIM is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange and it's therefore very much a recognised stock exchange -

London Stock Exchange's market for small and medium size growth companies


London Stock Exchange offers a choice of markets for listing equity
Our Main Market is one of the world's most international and diverse capital markets. There are three different segments of the Main Market: Premium, Standard and High Growth Segment, each tailored to different capital raising requirements.

AIM is a platform for small and medium size growth companies in need of access to capital to realise their growth and innovation potential. Growing companies from around the world and at different stages of development can join AIM.

Use the comparison table below to see what route to market is best for your company.

[boadicea] 16/2/2021 11:36

Thanks pldazzle and wan for your comments.
My original question was meant to read "How is the TAX to be paid if they [the dividend shares] cannot be liquidated? However the answer covers the point.

I am also intrigued by another technicality (perhaps I'm being a bit nerdy!) The announcement refers to "AIM or ANOTHER RECOGNISED stock exchange"... but I thought AIM was specifically NOT a 'recognised' stock exchange!

[wan] 16/2/2021 07:38

Melody...the relevant announcement/details -

On 11 December 2020 the board of EKF (the “Board”) convened and declared a dividend in specie of shares in Trellus to trustees, to be held on trust for the Company's shareholders (the "Dividend"). EKF’s investment in Trellus comprises 27,999,999 A Shares of £0.0001 each and 1 golden share of £0.0001 (the "Golden Share"). The Golden Share is the voting share in the capital of Trellus and will be retained by the Company. The Company's shareholders on the register as at close of business on 17 December 2020 ("Relevant EKF Shareholders") will receive one A Share (each a "Dividend Share") for every 16.25 ordinary share held in the Company.

Relevant EKF Shareholders will become the beneficial owners of their respective Dividend Shares upon completion of the transfer of the Dividend Shares to Broadway Nominees Limited (“Broadway”), at which time an ‘omnibus’ share certificate in respect of the Dividend Shares will be issued and held by Broadway, to be held on trust by it on behalf of the Relevant EKF Shareholders for a period of:

365 days following admission to trading on AIM (or another recognised stock exchange) of the issued share capital of Trellus; or
if the issued share capital of Trellus is not admitted to trading on AIM (or another recognised stock exchange) within two years of the date that the Dividend is settled, two years from the date that the Dividend is settled (the “Lock-up Period”).

During the Lock-up Period, Relevant EKF Shareholders will not be permitted to transfer the legal or beneficial ownership of their Dividend Shares.

Full details -

[pldazzle] 16/2/2021 07:07

boadicea - Sadly HMRC won't wear your suggestion. Remittance basis can't apply to income arising in the UK, which this is by definition in that EKF (the payer) is itself a UK company.

You ask "how is the dividend to be paid if they cannot be liquidated". The answer is that it has already been paid, specifically on 18/12/20, but being in specie it hasn't been (and won't be) paid in cash. Tough perhaps on individual large shareholders, particularly any who have little or no other income, though these will be very few in number and in practice I suspect the issue will be largely academic.

[Edit - following paragraph inserted:]
To put that in perspective, a holder of 100K EKF (currently worth c£75,000) would have received a dividend of 6153 Trellus shares. If these are valued at say 25p per share at 18/12/20 (only my own guess!) that would work out at £1,536. No other income? Unusual, as EKF has also paid a cash dividend of 1p per share: but at all events, the first £2,000 of dividends is tax-free. 45% taxpayer? Should be no problem finding £692, if necessary just sell a few EKF shares.....

On the other hand,

(a) I have seen a suggestion - infuriatingly I can no longer find the link and don't know how accurate it is - that the IPO is expected in calendar Q2 2021 (i.e. between April and June this year). That being the case, the lock-up should be over only a few months after the tax is technically due; and

(b) if the experience with RENX is anything to go by, the price at admission should be several times the value of the dividend at the time of in-specie payment. I have been assured by the company that the value of the dividend is to be announced with the final 2020 results, due next month or shortly after.

[melody9999] 15/2/2021 23:18

I've lost the plot re Trellus. Whats the deal for EKF s/holders?

[boadicea] 15/2/2021 20:22

RE: Trellus shares.
They are a dividend in specie and therefore potetially taxable as dividend income. How is this addressed and what value should be reported? Also, how is the dividend to be paid if they cannot be liquidated? I know this is a theoretical point but as a point of priciple suppose it were the only income one received. The only sensible solution would seemingly be to treat it as deferred income taxable on a remittance basis.

EDIT: In line 2 above it should read: "Also how is the TAX to be paid if they [the dividend shares] cannot be liquidated?"

[aspringo] 15/2/2021 15:45

Cheers Wan for the confirmation. Much appreciated.

[wan] 15/2/2021 15:23

I can confirm that Barclays are not going to do anything about either Verici or Trelllus Health shares!

The official line is, until they receive notification 'confirming' when the shares are to be received, they will not open a corporate action case. Furthermore, if they do receive such notification, they will not open a corporate action case that's pending for 12 months, and only open a case nearer to the time they are physically due!

So as I mentioned previously, I suggest that investors with Barclays Smart Investor print off the in specie declaration and ratio details, and then file it manually with your respective portfolio details.

[aspringo] 15/2/2021 09:51

Apologies, did anyone have any luck in finding out about the Trellis distribution on Barclays.I will chase later this week after I've done my grandad duties.Just hoped they may have got it sorted without further enquiries. P.s. thanks to all the very informative posters.

[mirandaj] 15/2/2021 08:25

Thank you for that wan. Very interesting in so many ways.

[wan] 15/2/2021 08:12

I note that Trellus Health have been busy (ahead of the impending IPO) -

New hires
Board of Directors
Scientific Advisory Board

[wan] 13/2/2021 07:39

The following Federal funding opportunity: Solicitation for Area of Interest (AoI) is 'highly' relevant to EKF and Longhorns US products and US manufacturing -

The solicitation specifically seeks submissions from testing supply chain stakeholders, such as sample collection and consumables makers, suppliers of raw materials and components, and developers of equipment, among others, to expand manufacturing capacity or increase test throughput.

Federal Agencies Collaborate to Solicit Proposals for SARS-CoV-2 Testing Supply Chain Scale-Up
Feb 12, 2021

NEW YORK – A collaborative effort involving various agencies in the federal government is soliciting proposals intended to dramatically scale up the US testing supply chain.

The collaboration includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary (OASH) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), HHS' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the National Institute of Health Rapid Acquisition of Diagnostics (RADx) program, and the United States Air Force.

The supply chain solicitation came as an Area of Interest document that was posted online on Feb. 5. The document was further updated Feb. 11 to emphasize that the solicitation is not intended to procure test kits, but rather to procure the components and materials supporting test production.

The solicitation specifically seeks submissions from testing supply chain stakeholders, such as sample collection and consumables makers, suppliers of raw materials and components, and developers of equipment, among others, to expand manufacturing capacity or increase test throughput.

As noted in the AoI, the collaboration is looking to understand the diagnostics industry's ability "to rapidly mature and scale specific manufacturing capabilities within the diagnostic testing supply chain." The scope includes raw materials, resources, components, and equipment for the production of analyzers, reagents, test kits and other preanalytical, analytical, and post-analytical diagnostic materials for COVID-19 testing.

The desired respondents are vendors that have developed or are developing products relevant to COVID-19 diagnostic tests, but have potential for future use in diagnostics related to other pathogens and testing requirements such as blood product testing, the AoI states.

"Submissions should provide line of site from their manufactured items to the COVID-19 diagnostic activity they support or are integrated with," and need not be from US-based companies, but "all expansion of manufacturing efforts must be done within the US and/or its territories."

Full story -

Federal funding opportunity: Solicitation for Area of Interest (AoI)


Readers will also note that it also goes beyond COVID-19 testing, requesting potential for future use in diagnostics related to other pathogens and testing requirements. PrimeStore MTM can already do that, and its already FDA approved (not just EUA's)!

Country preparedness hasn't featured much yet, but as effectively demonstrated above, it's already being considered a strategic necessity!

[wan] 13/2/2021 07:11

Pldazzle...Not yet! But a tie-up with a pharmacy chain, perhaps one that already offers a lateral flow antigen test, might be possible. Or, given that that EKF link appears to be presumably for Wales only, perhaps it's on the cards to partner more widely via Source Bio (maybe even Germany too)?

[pldazzle] 12/2/2021 20:45

I'm retired, but would be happy to pay £80 a go to know and monitor my own antibody "score", and doubt if I'm alone in this. Do - or could - EKF offer this service to private individuals?

[wan] 12/2/2021 07:57

In Marandaj's link, I am particularly interested in what is a very complimentary combination of rapid and quantitative antibody testing, a compelling combination unlikely to be replicated by others!

[wan] 11/2/2021 17:15

Thanks Mirandaj...Very interesting that EKF is directly entering workplace antibody testing.

[wan] 09/2/2021 08:51

Mirandaj....No test is perfect, but I am quite sure the UK manufactured tests will be better than the Chinese version you were tested with.

Which brings me back to where we might see PrimeStore ATM (manufactured by EKF) facilitating rapid antigen testing?

A reminder -

Maryland’s Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics Set to Launch New Product that Could Revolutionize Molecular Testing

PrimeStore ATM is a virucidal, bacteriostatic, Guanidine-free sample collection device optimized for molecular testing while providing highly sensitive antigen testing capabilities. The product is validated for influenza qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) and antigen testing and is the first-of-its-kind extraction-less qPCR sample collection device.

Dr. Luke T. Daum, Longhorn’s Scientific Co-founder, Executive Vice President, and Chief Science Officer, invented PrimeStore ATM and has spearheaded efforts to launch the new product.

“I invented the new product about three years ago to improve and enhance rapid antigen tests for respiratory pathogens…this is a decontaminating blend that destroys lipid-lipid and lipid-protein interactions and yet it preserves protein-protein interactions,” stated Daum. “I wanted ATM to improve antigen testing but we also wanted it to be used as a molecular media. PrimeStore ATM is extremely compatible with Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Magmax System and the Kingfisher platform and improves signal detection compared to other collection media out there.”

“What we’ve found is that a lot of people are using the Magmax chemistry on the Kingfisher platform or other platforms to process COVID-19 samples,” shared Daum. “That was very exciting, but it’s not the most exciting thing we found.”

“What we’ve also found is that with PrimeStore ATM you can do extraction-less PCR, which is the ‘holy grail’ of molecular diagnostics. You can collect a nasopharyngeal swab, stick it in a tube with PrimeStore ATM, vortex the tube and put the sample directly into the machine, skipping the entire middle step of nucleic acid extraction,” shared Daum.

Full story -

[mirandaj] 09/2/2021 07:46

All I know, from experience is that many lateral flow tests give false negatives.

Will these actually be failsafe? Just a thought

Www.surescreen.com

[wan] 08/2/2021 07:58

Testing, testing, testing........Sequencing, sequencing, sequencing!

NYC to Fund Coronavirus Surveillance Sequencing as Congress Proposes $2B for Nationwide Program

Feb 04, 2021 | Andrew P. Han
NEW YORK – The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and the US Congress are launching separate efforts to boost next-generation sequencing-based surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Baldwin plans to introduce the "Tracking COVID-19 Variants Act" in the Senate, to be followed by a House companion bill. In addition to funding next-generation sequencing to identify and track new and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, the bill provides $10 million for a demonstration program to facilitate public health research.

The bill also calls for national guidance from the CDC, "including guidance related to the sharing of specimens obtained from patients, the secure sharing of information about such specimens necessary for an effective public health response to COVID–19, and the appropriate use of viral sequence data derived from such specimens." It specifically mentions support for the agency's Advanced Molecular Detection Program.

"Variants represent a growing threat to the health and security of our nation, and right now the US is lagging behind other countries in tracking new and emerging variants of this deadly virus," Baldwin said in a statement. "The US should be a world leader in this effort, and that means we must invest more funding and resources to allow the CDC to ramp up national sequence-based surveillance and support our public health infrastructure so we can better identify, survey, and understand these variants, and better protect all Americans from this public health crisis."

The Tracking COVID-19 Variants Act notes that the US is sequencing only .3 percent of COVID-19 cases, "lagging far behind other nations." By comparison, the UK has sequenced approximately 6.8 percent of total coronavirus cases, according to a recent report from the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium.

"Increasing sequencing capacity will play a key role in not only identifying, tracking, and mitigating the impact of the genetic new strains, but also vaccine development and distribution, testing, and getting our economy back on track," Stefano Bertuzzi, CEO of the American Society for Microbiology, said in a statement.

Peters represents California's 52nd congressional district, which includes northern San Diego, where sequencing giant Illumina is headquartered.

Full story -

A particular excerpt from the above re: sharing patient samples -

"The bill also calls for national guidance from the CDC, "including guidance related to the sharing of specimens obtained from patients, the secure sharing of information about such specimens necessary for an effective public health response to COVID–19, and the appropriate use of viral sequence data derived from such specimens." It specifically mentions support for the agency's Advanced Molecular Detection Program.
(END)

Apart from optimizing molecular testing, a key feature of PrimeStore MTM is that it allows lab teams to process multiple tests from a single sample that has been inactivated and stabilized in PrimeStore MTM.

[cambridgedon] 07/2/2021 12:02

Faz, Exactly! I've been a customer since the early days. The staff then were superb. I know they have grown a lot but now you have to go through three staff members to get a good one. Sad really.
CD

[wan] 07/2/2021 08:06

EKF Diagnostics is featured in IC's Fund Manager Best Ideas: GLOBAL -
number of funds 1 (the same number of funds for over 67% of the 34 listed)
Source Morning Star, 3rd February 2021