Ekf Diagnostics Share Discussion Threads

[interstellar] 11/9/2015 16:58

With so much currently in negotiation behind closed doors so to speak it is important that we smaller investors keep an eye on what is going on. With that in mind there have been two form 8.3 disclosures in the past two or three days. One by the CEO of Selah and one by a director of Diaspect. I don't find them very self explanatory. Are they buying shares in advance of a potential takeover or dumping them? Can anyone clarify for me or have views?

[wan] 07/9/2015 07:48

Confirmation that any offer will be in cash suggests that discussions have advanced a bit further, perhaps even firming up a notch.

Not that I am an outright supporter of EKF being bought out, but lets get a few more tender wins under our belt first!

[interstellar] 03/9/2015 10:10

Interesting isn't it how we all see different meanings in a simple statement.

I read the statement "We are delighted to announce these two new business wins. The hemoglobin testing market is highly competitive'' as "Despite being highly competitive we have won busines (perhaps emphasising how good the product is" whereas Buywell2 reads it as business won in a non competitive loss leader fashion and then goes on to worry about the entire tender process with a price war looming. Glass half full/ glass half empty- you pays your money and take your choice.

For the record I'm with Wan on this- it's early indications that the management are expecting a good second half.

[wan] 03/9/2015 07:47

Buywell...I don't intend to get into too much debate with you, but if you read the trading update, which I highlighted further above, EKF has developed the strongest tender pipeline it has ever had and a number of these tenders will be decided in H2, obviously we are now in the second half and clearly we are going to get further announcements of tender wins!

[buywell2] 03/9/2015 07:32

I wonder if these are loss leaders ?

"We are delighted to announce these two new business wins. The hemoglobin testing market is highly competitive''


I would have thought they would have to be to get the product out there

How many others will also have to be won in the same manner ?

That is the question

And will the BIG established companies care re such tiny orders lost ?

If they are they will drop their next tender price

[wan] 03/9/2015 07:25

Not sure why EKF's announcement is not showing on ADVFN, but here it is -

RNS Number : 9191X
EKF Diagnostics Holdings PLC
03 September 2015


EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc
("EKF", the "Company")

New tender wins for Hemo Control

EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc (AIM: EKF), the AIM listed point-of-care, central laboratory and molecular diagnostics business, announces that it has recently won two new tenders for its Hemo Control point-of-care hemoglobin analyser.

In Turkey, EKF has been awarded a tender by the Red Crescent, the humanitarian organisation that runs the nation's blood banking service. Under the terms of the tender EKF will supply 668 Hemo Control analysers and 160,000 boxes of cuvettes over a three year period, in a contract worth a little under €1 million.

The second tender has been secured by EKF's US sales team from the State of Colorado's Women, Infants and Children programme. The tender to supply Hemo Control analysers (sold in the US as HemoPoint H2) and related cuvettes is valued at $450,000 over a five year period with additional incremental tenders expected for further analyser accessories.

Julian Baines, CEO of EKF Diagnostics said: "We are delighted to announce these two new business wins. The hemoglobin testing market is highly competitive and in winning both of these accounts we have demonstrated once again that we have a world-class product that can compete with the market leader. In addition, we anticipate that we will be able to announce further tender wins in the near future."

[interstellar] 27/8/2015 17:27

Actually I agree that the big shareholders have lost patience with the Baines/ Evans partnership. They had a long way to go to deliver the potential of the POC business and their valuable asset of installed instruments but they decided to go off on a tangent with futuristic ventures way too soon.. The strategy they should have followed, which they committed to at the outset, was to get more tests on the instruments- increasing the pull through revenues and working the asset for all it was worth. But today, for example, five years after acquisition we have a Quotest that only performs one test- whereas the competition have multiple analytes on their instrument platforms. Instead of this less risky route they instead were lured by the quick returns of new business areas which I would claim they did not fully understand. As evidenced by valuing businesses on future earnings which were reimbersment dependent and therefore not assured and which, when uncovered, caused our shareholder value to dive. Wan is a wonderful optimist and I admire him for it but any talk of 35 pence or even 30 pence is pie in the proverbial sky- though i would love to see it.

[wan] 27/8/2015 17:04

Kestemill...Well the same shareholders almost certainly picked up a lot of shares in the 15p and 20p placings (and possibly the 35p placing too), so they are unlikely to be loosing money (unlike some of the PI's who had to buy the market price).

The large shareholders appear to have lost faith/patience with management, or at least were not happy with management not exploring further certain enquiries (same thing really). Hence those shareholders forced/pushed the issue up the agenda. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that management are forced to react in some circumstances, but hopefully for the best outcome for 'all' shareholders. And I would imagine that the management will be keen from their own perspectives/track record to get a decent exit price. 35p (the last Placing price) would no doubt be well received by the large shareholder, but no doubt 30p (FinnCaps target price), might also be acceptable.

That aside, I would be happy to see things continue given that management unequivocally acknowledge that they have to deliver strong organic growth. It would obviously be good to get some news flow that indicated such growth (and indeed cash flow) was materialising. Excerpt from the Trading Update -

EKF has developed the strongest tender pipeline it has ever had and a number of these tenders will be decided in H2. To that end we have secured a significant tender in the Middle East to deliver a number of our diabetes products in 2015 and 2016. Once exact quantities have been confirmed we will update the market accordingly.
(END)

Fingers crossed!

[kestelmill] 27/8/2015 11:29

Can someone help me understand this. The share price is pretty much as low as it has ever been. Therefore the shareholders who are asking for the company to be broken up are going to lose money if they sell as of today. So why not: i) sell or offload the bad bits, ii) give the company more time to grow. It's not as if Julian Baines and David Evans don't have the track record.

I don't really understand what the major shareholders are hoping for if they are considering selling off the best part of the business.

[interstellar] 27/8/2015 08:55

Buywell? Don't necessarily agree that something has been seen in due diligence- much too soon I would think. But I do agree with you about the first sentiment. If the company has seen fit to recognise that the acquisitions of Selah and others in the Molecular business were a distraction and mistake (after all the company was moving ahead nicely before these disasters were acquired) why would anyone else want to pick them up either. I suspect that the stock market fall out has something to do with the withdrawn offer. A revised, lower bid may be the result of all the market falls even though there has been a small rally today as I write this. Nobody knows what stocks are worth. Dont forget EKF's results are strongly affected by exchange rates (esp Russia) which have been having a torrid time of it lately as well.

[interstellar] 26/8/2015 12:43

We'll see,

[stupidboypike] 26/8/2015 12:05

I agree with wan, I see this as possibly positive. If things are moving on, a "low bid" would realise they have no chance and move on. Best regards SBP

[wan] 26/8/2015 11:02

Possibly, but what if, as I allude to above, they are now considering a full bid?

[interstellar] 26/8/2015 10:50

So much for a bidding war! One supposedly interested party has headed for the door marked EXIT already

[wan] 25/8/2015 11:03

Today's announcement that Ron Zwanziger has increased his stake, would imply that he too sees something beyond the current pricing.

[wan] 25/8/2015 10:14

There are few news items around regarding the offers for EKF (in part or whole), with at least two misreporting the facts, anyway, FinnCap also think that further offers/interested parties are likely to come forward, so things might get quite interesting. (I wonder if the Chinese interest was sparked by EKF's recent entry into the Chinese market?)

Finally, Cardiff-based EKF Diagnostics leapt 3.5pc to 22.3p after announcing it had received two bids of between $115m and $125m for its Point-of-Care diagnostics business. The Aim-listed group also revealed a “highly preliminary” approach by JinJing, the Chinese company that supplied the glass for the world’s tallest building - the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai.

Keith Redpath, of finnCap, suspects “further offers may be forthcoming”, given the value that industry places on such an enterprise.

Full story -

[wan] 24/8/2015 10:14

New interest in the whole group would suggest there is more than a hint of opportunity on offer, but things are at a very early stage and if things advance at what price premium will the bidder/s be prepared to offer. I am still expecting to see others declare an interest in the whole Group, with perhaps the two competing interests in the POC business even joining the fray.

It is interesting how the large shareholders have forced the issue here (I expect we will see more of this), and perhaps they will also play a just as interesting role in what is acceptable. Either way (break-up/spin-off, new chairman, or whole sale) we are obviously looking at a material change for EKF.

[buywell3] 24/8/2015 09:29

The market does not seem impressed though here by the latest RNS's does it.

So it would seem what might be left ain't up to much and the best bit is going

[interstellar] 24/8/2015 09:25

I have to admire the timing of this- someone is a very lucky investor indeed. With all this blood on the stock exchange floor over the past few sessions decimating asset values I am not optimistic about getting a good price for the business. Right now it's a buyers market even though there may be some competing bids. Fingers crossed this hemorrhaging of value globally stops soon.

[wan] 24/8/2015 07:24

I am not surprised in the least regarding interest in the whole group, but I am surprised as to this morning announcement of who the potential bidder is for the whole group i.e. a company who is apparently not 'directly' connected to the healthcare market, but perhaps that indicates both the potential and value on offer at EKF.

[wan] 24/8/2015 07:15

With restructuring complete and with improved margins coming through as a result, a series of new product launches (with more to come), and higher growth prospects from molecular diagnostics, which has been and is still on a lot of shopping lists, then I am pretty sure a bidding war will emerge for the whole group.

[cgequityinvest] 23/8/2015 18:21

interesting article in the Sunday Times today re EKF. Highlights:

* investors pressurised co into inviting bids for its point of care business
* A number of parties are considering bids for the whole business at up to £100m
* one interested party is Alere


Looks like the company is in play! Current mkt cap is circa £90m so it will need some competition to get a significant premium for shareholders.

[wan] 19/8/2015 07:36

I would prefer the option of keeping the POC business and see Ron as Chairman and see Molecular's value better realised. If one takes a look at the current valuations, activity and interest in the area of Genomics/NGS, it would suggest there is and will be strong appetite for the spin off (Nasdaq?)-

Aug 18, 2015
New Company, Helix, Founded to Allow Individuals Access to and Insights on Their Genomes

Illumina, Warburg Pincus, and Sutter Hill Ventures set up a company with the goal of helping consumers discover insights into their own genomes. The new firm, Helix, is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and reported received financing commitments in excess of $100 million.

“ Genomics is reaching an inflection point in cost, volumes, and knowledge, creating a significant opportunity to unlock information that is currently not widely accessible to individuals,” said Jay Flatley, CEO of Illumina and chairman of the board of Helix.

Full story -


SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

The global next generation sequencing market is expected to reach USD 27.8 billion by 2022, growing at an estimated CAGR of 40.1% from 2015 to 2022, according to a new study by Grand View Research, Inc. Development of faster, more efficient genomic sequencing methodologies is expected to result in significant reduction in cost of sequencing one base pair. This is expected to augment adoption and usage rates of next generation sequencing throughout the forecast period. Revenue generation from HLA and prenatal testing segments is also expected to grow owing to the introduction of more informative novel phase resolved single cycle reads. Increasing concern for cancer and R&D related to related oncology and infectious diseases therapies are further expected to fuel the growth of next generation sequencing market throughout the forecast period.

Further key findings from the study suggest:

Targeted sequencing and sequencing of genetic segments accounted for the largest share of revenue generated in 2014. This is due to the high usage rates of this market segment in the NGS applications for oncology and infectious diseases research. This primarily encompasses targeted sequencig of pathogenic life forms and cancer cells to better understand the mechanics of these diseases to develop faster acting, more efficient treatments and therapies. These factors are expected to fuel the growth of this market throughout the forecast period.

NGS sequencing segment in the workflow is observed to be the most revenue generating owing to the presence and usage of technologically advanced, capital intensive genome sequencing platforms such as HiSeq and MiSeq. The anticipated increase NGS market adoption is expected to drive demand for this segment over the forecast period.



ROCHE TO ACQUIRE KAPA BIOSYSTEMS TO STRENGTHEN NEXT-GENERATION SEQUENCING PRODUCT OFFERINGS
Basel, 19 August 2015

Roche to acquire Kapa Biosystems to strengthen next-generation sequencing product offerings

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kapa Biosystems, Inc. (Kapa) a privately-held company headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, US. Kapa Biosystems is a provider of genomic tools in the life sciences sector that employs proprietary technologies to optimize enzymes for next-generation sequencing (NGS), as well as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real-time PCR applications1.

Full news story -

[wan] 18/8/2015 17:38

Very quickly....There are a few risks, but either way the two options appears to ultimately offer upside. It's difficult to quickly come to a figure for the remainder after the POC business. For example, EKF bought Stanbio which includes both POC products and chemistry (clinical chemistry is excluded from the $110m 'proposal'), also EKF bought Argutus Medical, which would also not be included. So there appears potentially more than £20m in value remaining or to be realised, or at least the discount applied reduced (compared to what EKF paid, which again quickly is more than £20m). Hence the strategic reviews conclusion to realise value, either in part or 'in full', so a full bid (3rd option?) cannot be discounted either.