Kromek Share Discussion Threads

[mjneish] 08/1/2024 19:44

Yes the figure of 600 million is quoted in their RNS of the 14th of September, so ADVFN are indeed late updating their figures.

[quepassa] 08/1/2024 19:41

No. The ADVFN figures would reflect the latest reported y/e figures to 30/4/23 and would not necessarily have been updated to reflect issuance of new shares after the y/e date. To this extent, it is important to bear in mind what happens after year-end figures in calculating current ratios and not to rely totally on figures from a third-party provider.

ADVFN's figures are not up with events.

ADVFN would lift figures from annual reports and therefore may innocently not be fully up to date if there has been new issuance of shares since the y/e date.

And there has been. A lot

The latest annual results were released in July, however the figures were for y/e 30/4/23. These y/e figures PRE-DATE the issuance of high volumes of new shares during the course of 2023 due to a MAJOR fund-raising announced in May and a few other corporate events which also meant the issue of more shares.

Why would you use old figures to calculate EPS correctly when the new figure of 600 miliion is already known, available and on the Company website?

ALL IMO. DYOR.
QP

[mjneish] 08/1/2024 19:01

Yes quite right. 36.58% of them are not in public hands (it says), so the figures quoted on ADVFN must be the number of publicly traded shares.

However, to calculate future EPS, should they make a profit, what number of shares would be used? In their results, they are using 431.8 million.

[quepassa] 08/1/2024 18:17

Sorry to correct you but as at 14/9/23, there were 600 million shares in issue.

See Company website - Investor Relations-Securities in Issue.

Shares in issue have gone up approaching six-fold.


My guess is that there may or may not be a strong likelihood of more shares being issued in the coming periods to satisfy upcoming financial obligations.

What justifies a current market capitalisation of some £30 million is beyond me.


ALL IMO. DYOR.
QP

[mjneish] 08/1/2024 17:56

To add that the number of shares in issue has quadrupled since 2013.

end of October 2013: 107,357,000 shares @ 57.3 p
market cap: £61.5 million

today: 421,851,820 shares @ 4.95p
market cap: £20.9 million

[croasdalelfc] 04/1/2024 10:24

Which comes first ? Results or shares issued for CLN? Tick tock

[supernumerary] 02/1/2024 13:08

Jak - they're right down the bottom of the page...

This is just the first lot - not saying anything new...

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T Burley
26 DECEMBER, 2023
It's tiny and still loss-making after more than a decade in business and many funding rounds. It's not to a business, it's a customer charity transferring shareholders funds to them every day year after year. If it had scaled to billions or at least a few hundred million over these decades and was ...
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Recommend (31)
Andrew Lapping
26 DECEMBER, 2023
As a long suffering shareholder, try making a profit or get out of the way and let someone else try.The company has had numerous fundraisings, pre and post IPO, at ever decreasing values.
Time to make a profit
Recommend (15)
Jonathon Cole
26 DECEMBER, 2023
The owner is part of the problem. He has persistently avoided investing and expanding to a greater scale required to boost profitability because he , like many science based entrepreneurs, he is afraid of / doesn’t understand dilution. They dont like losing control
He should have raised more fund...
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Recommend (12)
S Evans
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Kromek has consistently come back to shareholders for funds at massive discounts, no way would the CEO have been able to obtain funds elsewhere if it was not public.
As a shareholder I have been Distinctly unimpressed with the CEO and the board, the CEO continues to reward himself with a bloated sal...
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Recommend (9)
Ian Caswell
26 DECEMBER, 2023
What a terrible example. After 10 years floated only £17m turnover and a massive £7m loss. Pity the poor shareholders. Looks like a very poorly run company that will eventually change management or go bust.
The market has reacted exactly the way it should to a rubbish business.
Recommend (9)
M Hedges
26 DECEMBER, 2023
What retail investors do understand is that when it comes to return on investment, the top line by itself is meaningless. A wafer thin gross margin and an eye watering loss at the operating level are of far more interest. An extremely high cash burn and constant dilution at lower and lower prices a...
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Recommend (6)
T Nicholson
26 DECEMBER, 2023
It sounds like a very clever business but if you’re not turning profit after a decade and having had multiple funding rounds, perhaps it is the business?
Recommend (5)
P Norton
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Blaming the market is shooting the messenger. Prices are information and the information this share price is telling you is that this is a rubbish company. If it were any good then a private buyer would have bought it or if the management back it, why not do a MBO?
Of course the market isn’t always...
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Recommend (4)
Charles Mitchell
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Not only not profitable but they have had numerous fund raising. So no wonder the market values lowly.
Interesting company, but would only buy on improved financial performance.
Recommend (3)
Bobbie Fish
26 DECEMBER, 2023
How do you value a business that is not making a profit which is in a fast moving technology world. You need to know about the competition and demand for its products. That’s a difficult valuation to make. Any valuation is on hope and the Kromek boss possibly a salesman is the last person to value ...
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Recommended (0)
James Robinson
26 DECEMBER, 2023
A poor comment which says everything. Look in the mirror
Recommend (2)

[jaknife] 02/1/2024 12:22

This is the article. Perhaps it's my settings but I can't see any reader comments.


======================
Kromek boss ‘might not have listed technology company on Aim’

Arnab Basu joins other technology bosses ‘frustrated217; with London’s small-cap market after his firm’s share price dropped more than 90 per cent since 2013

Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor
Tuesday December 26 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Times

Arnab Basu, the chief executive of Kromek, argues that technology businesses that require time and investment to grow are often ignored by UK investors in favour of short-term successes

The boss of Kromek has said that with hindsight he might not have listed the scanning technology business on London’s junior stock market, adding his voice to those of other British technology chief executives who complain that the City lacks understanding of the sector.

The share price of the Co Durham-based company, which designs and makes high-specification materials for security and medical imaging, has fallen by more than 90 per cent since it was listed on Aim in 2013, despite Kromek increasing its revenue and market share.

Arnab Basu said it was “frustrating that the company’s value isn’t recognised”. The business, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, made £17 million of revenue in 2022, a 44 per cent rise from the year before.

However, it has yet to make a profit, suffering an adjusted pre-tax loss of £7 million in 2023, down from £7.8 million the year before. About a third of its revenue is from the United States and a fifth from Britain.

Kromek is covered by only one firm of City analysts — Cavendish, part of the finnCap Group. In July, after the company’s full-year results, Mark Brewer, finnCap’s director of research, wrote: “As the only independent supplier at scale of CZT [a semiconductor] for imaging systems, we believe there is substantial strategic value in Kromek that is not reflected in the current price.”

Another London technology analyst, who does not follow the stock, said: “The low end of the Aim market capitalisation spectrum can be a trap in terms of low valuations. The company capitalises a lot of development costs and has been cashflow-negative for the past two years; improving profitability and turning cash-positive will be keys to getting a higher valuation.”

Reflecting on its ten years as a public company, Basu, 50, said: “We have had a difficult time in the market, where the business has grown continuously but the value recognition has declined continuously. When you’re talking to retail investors, it must be very challenging for them to really understand a small, complex business. The relationship we had with private investors was much more interactive.”

He argued that technology businesses that required time and investment to grow were often ignored in favour of short-term successes. “Hardware tech is still rare in the UK. And I think if you’re not in certain segments, understanding and the pool of investors within that is reasonably limited, which creates a pressure. Kromek’s story is shared by many compatriots in the tech market.”

Basu moved to Newcastle from India for his degree and stayed in the city, spinning out his doctorate from Durham University into a business that supplies medical companies, airports and security services worldwide. Kromek developed a semiconductor technology and manufacturing process that goes into a range of applications, including creating Europe’s first liquid explosive detection system, and has won its first contract with the European Space Agency.

Based in Sedgefield, the company employs 150 people with offices and manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania and California. It supplies the US Department of Homeland Security and works with Darpa, the US defence agency, producing a portfolio of products for the military in radiation detection.

Among the products in the pipeline, it is developing an airborne pathogen-testing system. The company works on detection in oncology, Alzheimer’s and cardiac processes and in the analysis of airborne diseases. Another area is radiation detection and Basu said it was looking at early warnings of biological or chemical weapons being used in public areas from cities to stadiums.

[quepassa] 02/1/2024 12:18

yes, thanks. that's the article but it's a paywall.

I was reading the London South East BB for KMK and a poster there mentioned that there were some reader comments on the article.

??

a mystery.

thanks anyway.

[jaknife] 02/1/2024 12:02

This one?



I can post the article if you want but I can't see any reader comments on it.

[quepassa] 02/1/2024 11:58

Anyone have access to the Times article on 26/12 please?

I am interested to see the reader comments on the article.

thanks.

QP

[andrew97] 01/1/2024 13:56

An interesting snippet in todays Times regarding radiation detector dogs in Ukriane using Kromek technology with a quote from Arnab.

[croasdalelfc] 20/12/2023 09:16

Sold them at 6-10p!

[croasdalelfc] 20/12/2023 09:16

Also see the Sept RNS where they converted £250k loan into 7.8m shares at 5p.So they bought back the shares at 5p probably having bought them at 6-10p. Easy profit

[croasdalelfc] 20/12/2023 09:13

Convertible loan note . first one is due 31st Jan 2024.They either issue shares at todays price for $1.7m ~ 40m shares or pay it back or extend the deadline 3 months.Otherwise known as a death spiral as the entity with the CLN is probably selling at higher prices and will but the 40m shares back at lower prices

[ali47fish] 18/12/2023 14:29

croa wht 's cln please explain your post

[croasdalelfc] 18/12/2023 14:14

Interim results fall just before the first CLN are due.Shared to be issues _(~40m) or company pays back £1.7m or extension for 3 months ?

[ark87] 28/11/2023 16:20

28m mcap is still massive for a company with KMK's appalling track record(one of the worst i've ever seen). 5-10m seems more appropriate until there is game changing news.

[ark87] 28/11/2023 16:15

Pump over, back down she goes. If it takes out the 3p bottom next stop is 1p.

[jaknife] 08/11/2023 10:57

QuePassa, I concur.

[quepassa] 08/11/2023 10:50

1.

Marketing material.


2.

Lots of recent RNS's - history shows that such activity is typically trying to drive the market prior to another fund-raising.


3.

Let's face it - they have to refinance or pay down another £2,579,000 PLUS INTEREST of 8% convertible debt in around three months time on 31st. January / 22nd February 2024. (extendable for further three months).

They also have to pay the first quarterly interest payment on their 9.5% 18 month £5.5m fixed rate term loan from Polymer N2 Ltd at the end of this December 2023.

This amounts to c. £130,625 - although they can pay the interest in shares - which would mean further dilution for shareholders.



Either way, they still have some major repayments/interest payments on the near-term horizon. Principal repayments Plus INTEREST PAYMENTS are approaching some £3 million


Watch out because there is, in my opinion, very little financial runway left on the c £7.5million (net of expenses) which they raised just six months ago in May 2023.


Finding the best part of another £3 million in the coming months is no easy task.


Looks to me like a lot more dilution for long-suffering shareholders may be on the horizon.


ALL IMO. DYOR.
QP

[edmonda] 08/11/2023 08:12

Lots of recent news, rounded up with an unchanged outlook in research note from ED - just published and available here:

[estienne] 01/11/2023 16:32

Like Filtronics all they win are low value R&D contracts

[aqc888] 01/11/2023 14:36

Another “upto” contract? We’ve seen many of them before…