Ekf Diagnostics Share Discussion Threads

[wan] 03/6/2021 05:04

Following on from post 2025 -

Amazon beefs up Covid testing capabilities
Published4 hours ago

Amazon is to expand its Covid testing lab facilities in the UK as the pandemic continues.

The online giant said this was to benefit employees and UK public health.

However, analysts said it could also provide business opportunities in the health sector and buff up Amazon's reputation after questions over working conditions.

Amazon recently moved into the online pharmacy business in the US for subscribers to its Prime service.

Lab tests
In 2020, the online retailing giant set up laboratories in Kentucky and in Greater Manchester to process employees' PCR tests.

The lab in Manchester has processed 900,000 test samples to date.

The test results are anonymous and will be shared with Public Health England once the lab is approved for sequencing.

Its coronavirus response efforts have so far cost the company $11.5bn (£8.1bn).

Tom Forte, managing director and senior research analyst at D.A. Davidson, said Amazon could convert staff Covid-19 testing and healthcare clinics for consumer use.

"We believe Covid-19 inspired Amazon to accelerate its healthcare-related efforts, by necessity.

"That said, we had long believed healthcare was an attractive opportunity for Amazon given its large market size and chances for the company to both improve the customer experience and lower the costs."

There are very few companies in the world who could have decided to build a state of the art diagnostics lab and have it functioning within months, but Amazon is one of them.

While the company insists that at the moment this site is purely to help keep their staff safer at work, they are sending out a very clear message.

They are able to process medical diagnostics and feed that information into public health agencies.

Right now this multimillion-pound site in Salford is only testing for Covid-19, but it's unlikely to be left idle after the pandemic.

Full story -

[cambridgedon] 02/6/2021 14:31

A J Bell just confirmed scale-back for TRLS IPO at 6.4%
CD

[mg1982] 02/6/2021 11:49

true, you've got a track record of providing accurate entry and exit prices along with % gains

[tongosti] 02/6/2021 11:46

Don't worry darling. Like I always do on this board I always give on the day when I enter and exit. Stay tuned mr politeness.

[mg1982] 02/6/2021 11:34

Please don't go long here Tong,

we won't hear the end of it then. Somehow you'll try convincing us that you've made 40% return trading between 81p-90p

[tongosti] 02/6/2021 11:00

Like I said a few days ago I like the action better. Still on the sidelines but happy to go long as soon as we get a valid signal to go in. Otherwise wait.

[faz] 01/6/2021 08:54

5We are six months on from the Trellus deal with Mt Sinai. Julian Baines is now to work full time on the role of bringing Sinai fledgling businesses to AIM. As he said at the AGM, he picked Trellus from 7 others offered to him. Some of those are going to look better with another year past, so I am hoping there will be more news in the next three months on how things are developing. EKF have more cash to invest now of course.

[wan] 01/6/2021 08:34

An excerpt of interest from the Trellus Health thread (TRLS) -

With some large companies already taking the initiative and deploying, at the employee level, their own healthcare offerings, including some that are trialling and 'demonstrating' before wider roll-out, Trellus might accelerate very quickly out of the demonstration starting blocks!

A good example of employers taking the initiative and trialling -

Amazon’s Multichannel Bid To Bring ‘Amazon Effect’ To Healthcare
28th May 2021

Those reports, in turn, follow March announcements that it will expand its telehealth service, Amazon Care, to employees in all 50 states starting this summer. It also plans to make the service available to other employers later this year. That service, as it stands now, focuses on telehealth consultations and in-home visits from nurses for a fee.

Amazon, it seems, is more determined than ever to shoulder its own push into healthcare on its own terms, with select partnerships that augment the ecosystem already in place. Earlier this year, the joint efforts between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase — Haven, which sought to, among other things, make insurance benefits easier to understand — was disbanded. The platform, and the algorithm, the pricing power and the logistics and the last mile all seem, at least in Amazon’s eyes, to be enough to disrupt healthcare.



Beyond demonstration - We know that the like of Amazon has designs beyond their own employees, and after building their own lab and trialling diagnostic testing on their own employees, they will be rolling out a much wider offering, which is very likely to be diagnostic testing beyond COVID-19 -

Amazon diagnostic lab receives College of American Pathologists accreditation

Accreditation is awarded to laboratories that meet stringent requirements for quality and safety.
Amazon's diagnostics laboratory in Hebron, Kentucky, has received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP). Widely recognized as an industry gold standard, the CAP Laboratory Accreditation Program is designed to ensure laboratories meet stringent requirements and maintain the highest standards of laboratory quality, safety, and accuracy. The laboratory—which processes thousands of COVID-19 tests a day—is certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), which regulate laboratory testing in the U.S.

"From day one of launching our employee COVID-19 testing program, we have focused on achieving the highest standards of quality and safety for our diagnostics laboratory," said Cem Sibay, Vice President, Amazon. "We are thrilled to receive this accreditation from the College of American Pathologists and are committed to delivering quality results and ensuring employee well-being."

Amazon received the CAP accreditation following a rigorous application and review process, including a multi-day on-site review by a CAP inspector. The inspector examined laboratory processes to ensure accuracy in diagnostic results and verified that the highest standards are in place to promote employee safety. The inspection also included a thorough review of the laboratory's quality control procedures and employee training records, in addition to interviews with technologists and laboratory management.

The Kentucky laboratory was built in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to help ensure the health and safety of our frontline employees by providing them with regular, reliable access to free COVID-19 testing. In April 2020, we quickly responded to the pandemic and began assembling a team with a variety of skills—from research scientists and program managers to procurement specialists and software engineers—to focus on supporting a comprehensive COVID-19 testing program. The initiative included building state-of-the-art diagnostic laboratories in the U.S. and UK, and ultimately creating an in-house COVID-19 testing program from scratch. Within weeks of launching, the laboratories were processing thousands of tests per day and building incremental testing capacity. The labs have now processed millions of voluntary tests from over 750,000 of our frontline employees, making Amazon a leader in employer-driven COVID-19 testing -

[btgman] 31/5/2021 13:07

It certainly isn't about staging it on day one it is about getting a decent crack of the whip via the restricted offer and I personally don't feel 6.5% is. Mr Mills seems to have picked up an additional 10m shares on float more than 4 times all the shares available in the restricted offer.

As for Trellus it is about continuing to build a decent stake as I ultimately see Teladoc taking them out at multiples of current price 5% of Teladoc market cap is over $1b


AIMHO
GLA
BTG

[pugugly] 31/5/2021 11:19

Good mto hear that - However my broker still unable to advise me how many - if any - allocated under the restricted offer - so would have been shooting blind buying in the market.

[wan] 31/5/2021 11:13

From a personal perspective, I was not unhappy with my restricted offer allocation, but I actually applied a multi-pronged approach/rationale. I applied for the restricted offer shares (which I knew I would get at least some shares at 40p), plus I bought (numerous times) in the open market on Friday. So, I have free locked-up shares via the in-specie dividend, restricted offer shares at 40p, and open market shares at various prices up to 60p. This has ultimately given me a very reasonable average price and decent exposure.

So, the current format/process works for me going forward.

[pugugly] 31/5/2021 10:57

A blue sky thought but would probabaly only work for potentially high growth spin-outs from companies with a strong shareholder base such as here.
Allow for all shareholders and new potential shareholders to obtain a secure Key backed by funding deposited in an escrow account -
Put up the funding requirement - in this case £28.5M on a secure site with a reserve shareprice of in this case 40p
Run an auction where key holders bid for how much of the stock available they wish to buy at a price they are prepared to pay, and with ability to vary their offer at any time - (very slimilar to the way current stock auctions work) until all the stock is cleared at a strike price.

Should produce more funding at less dilution - If any concern that target may not be reached I am fairly certain unerwriters could be obtained.

What do people think? Could this have legs?

[faz] 31/5/2021 09:56

btgman, if you only want to stag, sell on day one to make a profit, there's probably better ways of doing it. But if you trust the company EKF to make sensible investments and then reward shareholders as a result, then take your free shares and hold them. I forget what the RENX float was now - about 140p. And the verici was at 22p. Check the value of those free shares today. And then consider that EKF need not have invested at all in RENX or Trellus, and also need not distribute the outcome of that investment via shares- they could just have retained the money or paid a cash dividend. You also seem to be grumbling over the % distribution you get on the offer, on the basis that someone somewhere else might be getting more. Check out other offers recently such has those in the cannaboidal industry and compare.

[wan] 31/5/2021 09:44

The following springs to mind - “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time." and that sums up life in virtually all situations!

In other words, nothing is going to be perfection, but EKF do a damn good job in rewarding all their investors and generating further value via investment/spin-out opportunities. And it's perhaps easy to overlook the fact that we also need new investors to view EKF as being an attractive investment.

Let's keep firmly in mind, the degree of shareholder value already created by our very focused and forward-thinking management team and the tax efficient delivery of that value creation via in-specie dividends and spin-out, especially into 'private investors' ISA's and SIPPS. Not to mention the long-term growth plan now being put into action, which should drive earnings and create additional long-term value, along with Julian Baines new role, which will see him focus on delivering further value from the Company’s relationship with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, which in my opinion provides an overall investment proposition that should make EKF shares a compelling addition to investment portfolios, as well as instilling the rationale to hold long term (and potentially add).

Whilst I am sure further lessons will have been learnt/taken onboard etc, by the same token, it would be a shame if enabling private EKF investors was seen as being too complicated, especially if that caused too much by way of criticism (and possibly via unjustified disappointment), albeit I am sure constructive criticism will be welcome. In this regard, I am still in active discussions with Barclays, and I am sure resolving some of the platform/nominee issues could alleviate some of the criticisms, and no doubt disappointment, especially for those preferring to have utilised their ISA's and SIPP's.

[melody9999] 31/5/2021 09:17

The issue here is the IPO price being too low, and the restricted offer size being too low. The big loser is Trellus who have sold their shares too cheaply it would seem.

As an EKF shareholders I have Trellus shares locked up for a year (no cost), and a handful from the restricted offer (bought at 40p). Happy enough.

If the IPO had been priced at 65p, you would have got more in the restricted offer as demand would presumably have been less - but no profit as of today.

If the IPO had been at 80p - it would not have got away and / or - those taking up the restricted offer would be losing money.

So all in all looks good to me - thanks EKF and keep looking out for more Trellus type companies to invest in please!

[btgman] 30/5/2021 11:02

I want to look a little further at ekf and the Trellus scenario if I may.

Ekf use ekf cash to invest in Trellus for the benefit of EKF shareholders.
So let's look at £100k investment in EKF say 150,000 shares.
This gives 9230 specie shares @65p profit £6k

Follow on £100k application in restricted offer assuming 6.5% £6500 of shares received at 65p profit £4062.50
So £10,650 profit.
To make £10,650 in the ipo you would need to invest circa £17k
Ekf shareholders held 30% of Trellus post raise and potentially receive 3.2% of the ipo.
I really do wonder where the benefit really goes to? Perhaps someone could post who got what and how this compares to the EKF shareholders.
Going forward the attraction of the specie dividend exists but it is not what I expected it to be.
EKF is a solid company with great prospects but the events of the ipo has taken the shine off it morally for me.I get many companies don't allow shareholders to take part but 3.2% of the ipo is too skinny.

With a fairer distribution at the ipo it is easy to rectify but Trellus waa the one for me and paying 65% more doesn't sit well as an EKF Trellus holder pre float
AIMHO
GLA
BTG

[sharw] 30/5/2021 10:27

A few points to note -

1) the Link helpline is only for those who applied direct via them, i.e. those who do not hold via a nominee or those whose nominee was incapable of doing its job but did provide a means of applying direct to Link (Barclays).

2) in an offer like this a basic entitlement is usually given. Here it was not but is easy to work out - it was 7.87766 shares for every 100 held. Any shares applied for above the basic offer are then scaled back to match the number of shares in the basic entitlement not applied for (or in this case not allowed to apply for - this was restricted to registered address in the UK or the Channel Islands). This was not announced in this case which may have given people false hope as to the number of shares they might receive.

3) there has been no mention here of the nominee effect so here we go before we end up with people on this thread not understanding. The allocation of new shares will be scaled back by the same proportion for each applicant. However a nominee counts as one applicant. Within that nominee there will have been applications from underlying holders and many will not have applied. When the nominee receives its allocation it will distribute this to those who applied. Since the proportion of those who did not apply will vary from one nominee to another then the proportion of shares applied for will be different. The greater the proportion of people within a nominee who applied the less the % of their application they will receive.

I have just checked the COST thread where there was an open offer a year ago and these are the % of application above the basic offer received:
AJBell 20%
ii 20.5%
Barclays 40%
HL 63%
iWeb 100%

This time, of course, these will have different %s and the brokers will be in a different order although I bet ii will be lowest as it was initially the only one to alert its holders to the opportunity.

[wan] 29/5/2021 05:29

I had other commitments/engagements yesterday afternoon, otherwise I would have reminded investors of the following -

EKF Diagnostics Holdings PLC Trellus Health plc: Successful Restricted Offer
26/05/2021

Applicants to the Restricted Offer can confirm their final allotment of shares by contacting the Link Group helpline on 0371 664 0321. Calls are charged at the standard geographic rate and will vary by provider. Calls outside the United Kingdom will be charged at the applicable international rate. The helpline is open between 9.00 a.m. and 5.30 p.m., Monday to Friday excluding public holidays in England and Wales. The helpline cannot provide any financial, legal or tax advice and calls may be recorded and monitored for security and training purposes.

[tongosti] 28/5/2021 19:58

This time around I am more positive than I have been in a long while. Nothing certain at the moment of course and hence am currently out so let's patiently wait for the right moment and see what Mr Market will be up to over the next few days. Enjoy your weekend.

[ppmm] 28/5/2021 19:24

I believe I read that EKF had 31% of Of Trellus Health, that is of course before they distributed then to shareholders. Of course they are currently being held on trust for us.

[btgman] 28/5/2021 18:45

I must say as an investment EKF is a quality company and with the potential access to Trellus, Verici etc it is attractive in concept.

What I would say is if you gain shares as a 1 for 16.25 and then only receive 6.5% of you application quantity (which some are suggesting) as a concept that doesn't really work for me. Currently we are through day one of trading funds are tied up and I have no idea what I have been allocated and when funds will be returned. Youinvest were saying late this afternoon that the didn't know what the allocations were from the company.

I doubt those taking the part in the fundraise via placing v the restricted offer were scaled back to such a degree. When you have shareholders prepared to invest it would make sense to offer them more than such a paltry percentage.

At this point until funds are returned you are left buying in at a 50%+ premium plus or minus what happens before funds are returned not great to be fair.

AIMHO
GLA
BTG

[davr0s] 28/5/2021 18:02

Trellus pretrading today at over 60p if peeps hadn't noticed

[senseibull] 28/5/2021 13:06

Tongosti - yep, let’s see. I’m not hopeful. I think it’s going to take a broker revision to push it to £1.

[wan] 28/5/2021 11:21

CD...Not sure yet, as EKF distributed all their shares via a dividend in specie. So, they may possibly buy a holding in the open market.

What I do know though, and given that forecasts are conservative, we have exposure to the next phase of growth that will be delivered both organically (from what's already in progress) and via EKF's strategy for growth to 2024 and beyond, which I am very, very encouraged by.

And as demonstrated by Trellus Health's very successful fund raise, and admission on AIM today, we have exposure to further value creation and technology investments and the next Renalytix, Verici, and Trellus! Not to mention, exposure to the exciting growth prospects from these established companies/investments.

[cambridgedon] 28/5/2021 10:54

How many TRLS shares does EKF hold?
CD