Intelligent Ultrasound Share Discussion Threads

[waldron] 16/10/2007 07:20

Tue 16 Oct 2007

MED shares hit market
MED shares hit market New shares in mini-screen maker MicroEmissive Displays (MED) began trading yesterday following the Edinburgh-based firm's £7.5 million placing exercise last month. Funding was led by Scottish Equity Partners, and managing partner Calum Paterson said: "We've been impressed by MED's progress."

This article:

Last updated: 15-Oct-07 00:04 BST

[unionhall] 15/10/2007 23:15

SEP are pretty keen - spent £3.0m to buy 6m shares and take their stake to 24%.



Late RNS

[naeclue] 15/10/2007 12:06

I'm figuring that the Christmas market of next year is the big opportunity for MED customers - I'm hoping that Computer Game players will love the glasses. I think that production wasn't ready for Christmas this year, thus 08 is being talked of by management.

I would have hoped that some more contracts or sales had come through by now, but I guess it is patience required for now. The fundraising was at 50p wasn't it? I guess that will underpin the share price for a while.

[srsm] 13/10/2007 10:17

Decided not to ask on Sales - doubt they would tell me.
A bit more.


Chairman is a jovial fellow - practically begged me to go to the AGM. Ian (the brains) Underwood CTO even asked me why I hadn't made it to the last AGM... I was on holiday. In other words - very open and confident. Graeme (Finance) was also keen to chat.

Peter and Bill (non exec and CEO) looked very serious indeed.
When chatting to Ian I expressed my frustration with UK Tech Plc. Few companies (that I follow) seem to be able to make money. Ian pointed out the success rate of the board.

Anyhow, you get the picture, experience, confidence, competence, openness and a great product.

[puffin tickler] 13/10/2007 07:40

SRSM, thx for the report, any word on sales?

[thecurrymonster] 12/10/2007 13:40

Thanks for the update SRSM.

[pawdaw] 12/10/2007 12:34

SRSM, I was always very happy with the Dresden location for manufacturing. Indeed I have considered it a significant plus point. The Dresden area is the silicon valley of Germany and in terms of industrial innovation and relevant universtiy-based R&D it probably easily eclipses anything the UK has to offer.

[unionhall] 12/10/2007 11:41

Thanks SRSM...

[srsm] 12/10/2007 11:38

Chaps,

Just left EGM. All resolutions passed.

As sole shareholder attending I asked a few questions.

Mainly to clarify that production issue flagged up a while ago was not an issue and had no impact on customer deliveries.
Also, I queried why Germany for the manufacturing (worried that the hardware was so difficult to make that only the Germans could do it). Turns out they could have gone to lots of places but bang per buck particularly for early stage manufacturing prototyping was best concluded nearby (shame it couldn't have been done in the UK I suppose). So this means that in the future manufacturing could be done elsewhere should the need arise.
Also, anticipation that doubling-trebling output in Germany would take around 9 months to organise (not that long). I was slightly worried that MED might not be able to supply enough of the things should all go well. This seems unlikely on the above information.

All chaps very friendly and look to have great experience on the board.


I suggested they should get the devices into airliners. Imagine how much easier the new Airbus would be to fit out without the huge expense and wiring and power taken by large LCDs in seats. Much easier to hand out little eyescreens. They'd been thinking much the same.

Saw one of the devices. The screen really is tiny but held up to the eye looks great.

[thecurrymonster] 03/10/2007 13:44

INVESCO PERPETUAL AiM VCT PLC announces that, as at 30 September 2007, its top ten investments were as follows:

...MICROEMISSIVE DISPLAYS PLC...

[unclesomeone] 03/10/2007 08:45

No comments on this Sony news?



I know it's different, but it makes the 'O' in OLED a lot more digestible for the mainstream.

[superhero si] 21/9/2007 19:06

A company trading at just over twice asset value with the promise and potential of this. What do you think?

[ariane] 19/9/2007 05:35

Wed 19 Sep 2007

MED raises £7.5m to drive production of mini-screens
SCOTT REID DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR ([e-mail])
MINI-SCREEN maker MicroEmissive Displays (MED) has brushed off the market turmoil to raise £7.5 million as it looks to ramp up production at its German manufacturing plant.

The Edinburgh-based firm, which designs and manufactures low-energy light emitting polymer displays, also confirmed it was on track to be cash generative in the second half of next year after posting a narrower first-half loss.

Its chief executive, Bill Miller, said the cash injection would allow MED to "fairly rapidly" ramp up capacity at the Dresden facility.

"This is working capital to allow us to take advantage of the opportunities that we see in the marketplace and also to strengthen our balance sheet," he said.

"It demonstrates that we are a well funded, healthy company to potential customers."

The manufacturing plant has the capacity to produce about ten million of the tiny screens a year and give MED potential turnover of more than $100m (£50m). Assembly work is sub-contracted to a company in Shanghai before the finished goods are shipped to customers.

Miller said the Scots firm had landed more customers since its last market announcement, adding that he was "extremely confident" that the order book would continue to grow through the rest of this year and into 2008.

Releasing results for the six months to the end of June, MED said pre-tax losses had reduced to £3.1m from £3.4m a year earlier as research and development expenses eased.

As product shipments did not commence until the second half, no revenues were generated during the period.

MED was founded as a spin-off from Napier and Edinburgh universities in 1999 and has gained a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's smallest television screens. It listed on AIM in 2004.

With much of the attention switching to Germany, Miller stressed the importance of the Scottish headquarters, where some 34 staff are based.

"The Edinburgh operation is extremely important to us," he said. "All of the development and IP work is currently carried out in the city and that will continue to be the case."

Shares in MED dipped a penny to close at 53.5p, against a year high of 65p.

The £7.5m share placing will represent about 26.5 per cent of the company's issued share capital following admission. Approval will be sought from shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting on 12 October.

Chairman George Elliott, the former finance director of Edinburgh-based Wolfson Microelectronics, said: "The company is building traction with potential customers, the order book is growing and the prospects for the second half of 2007 and in particular for 2008 are promising."

This article:

Last updated: 18-Sep-07 00:42 BST

[puffin tickler] 18/9/2007 20:33

Personally I think the placing is excellent. Getting 50p when the share price is 54 and the market in turmoil underscores the credibility of the story and means real dilution is minimal.

Hopefully the lack of sales spend indicates how easy sales are going to be! 7.5M seems a reasonable amount too, any less would perhaps put them under pressure too quickly once production gets under way.

[thecurrymonster] 18/9/2007 10:52

SRSM,

I think I agree with you, it's quite a large placing, but that's nothing new for MED!
I would rather see one decent sized placing now rather than having to come back cap-in-hand for more money in six months time. Costs seem to be reasonably under control now, so I doubt that the money will be wasted. I suspect that now the plant is up and running, and stocking and distribution deals are in place, then they are probably working flat out now to get some stock available - until that stock is sold, there must be quite a high working capital requirement, so I hope and expect that the cash is funding this.
One or two big, prestigous orders is probably all we need now to really get the ball moving and start generating some cash.

[srsm] 18/9/2007 10:06

TCM

I'm a bit surprised by the size of the placing. 25% giving £7.5M. Do they really need that much! I've held a lot of UK Technology companies over the years few of which ever seem to sell anything. I'd like to see MED get their money the old fashioned way - sell stuff and get paid by the customer. A rare thing for UK Tech Plc.

What I've never been good at working out is the impact of these fund raisings. In theory we have suffered a dilution - £1 profit would have to be split more ways but I have the same number of shares. However, the company has more cash and assuming it isn't wasted on a company jet I will benefit as a result of this extra money.

I suppose my worry is that this simply reduces the pressure on management to get out there and sell the product. IMG is a perfect example - their fund raising was virtually an annual event.

In summary.
Yes to the fund raising but no to such a high amount.

Cheers

[thecurrymonster] 18/9/2007 08:56

Results look pretty much as expected to me - it was obvious that there wasn't going to be any revenue from sales just yet...

I'm a little surprised to see the spend on Sales and Marketing down compared to last year, as I would have thought that this was being ramped up in order to generate a pipeline of future business. Admin and R&D costs seem to be under control, so we now really need to see the sales and production ramping up in the next year.

The placing is no great surprise either - it always seemed likely that a further fund-raising would be required to fund the working capital requirements.

What we need now is some decent orders!

Back to sleep now for a few months...

[thecurrymonster] 17/9/2007 09:32

Actually, I suspect that the original article was wrong, and the ME3204 is perhaps not behind the Toshiba screen.
CDT's P-OLED technology certainly is though:

[thecurrymonster] 17/9/2007 09:23

SRSM

You are right, the ME3204 is a tiny microdisplay, however the image can be magnified using optics.



The tiny eyescreen™ microdisplay with a 6 mm (0.24") diagonal pixel array can be combined with magnifying optics to produce a large virtual image, that appears to the eye to be equivalent in dimensions to the picture on a TV screen or computer display

I assume (but don't really know) that this magnification has somehow been extended for the 20.8-in. P-OLED TV. Of course, there is a possibility that the article is wrong anyway - after all, they attributed the ME3204 to CDT rather than MED.

I'm also not 100% certain what the relationship is between CDT and MED - if I understand correctly, CDT pioneered P-OLED technology, and hold the patents for it. MED have implemented this technology under license in their displays, and then proceeded to commercialise it.

I'm happy to be corrected on this if anyone knows more...

[srsm] 16/9/2007 12:13

TCM

I'm a bit confused. MED state "The eyescreen™ ME3204 is a colour P-OLED QVGA (320 x RGB x 240) microdisplay with 230K dots and a compact 6 mm (0.24") diagonal pixel array"

So I'm not sure how this could be the same device used for a 20.8-in TV.

Also, I'm struggling to see what MED add to the CDT/Sumation technology. Perhaps it is in packaging the P-OLED into something useful as described here


Also of note on this page is the mention of 'exclusive licence... for the production of microdisplays'. This is good but I wonder how long the exclusive nature lasts?

Cheers

[unclesomeone] 14/9/2007 11:38

For those that haven't actually seen MED's product in the flesh (which in my view is the only way to appreciate how shockingly good it is) there's a chance next week with a talk at the end of this SID conference:

[unionhall] 05/9/2007 15:21

Shouldn't the horse have his head below that of the eastern gentleman ?

[25october1969] 05/9/2007 10:07

Get it from the horse's mouth...with picture