Sabien Technology Share Discussion Threads

[masurenguy] 28/7/2015 07:08

Sabien Technology
Admission of Placing and Subscription Shares
RNS Number : 1464U
28 July 2015

Sabien (AIM: SNT), the manufacturer and supplier of M2G, an energy efficiency technology, is pleased to announce that, further to its announcement of 20 July 2015 relating to the conditional placing of 9,860,000 new ordinary shares of 5 pence each (the "Placing Shares") and the subscription of 1,140,000 new ordinary shares of 5 pence each (the "Subscription Shares") by TVI 2 Limited, the Company has received the required advance assurances from HMRC.

Application has been made for admission of the Placing Shares and Subscription Shares to trading on AIM ("Admission") and it is anticipated that Admission will occur on 3 August 2015. Admission remains conditional on the placing agreement between the Company and Westhouse Securities and the subscription agreement between the Company and TVI 2 Limited becoming unconditional and not being terminated in accordance with their terms. Following Admission the total enlarged issued share capital of the Company will be 44,004,867 ordinary shares of 5 pence each. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

[here and there] 20/7/2015 08:47

This has been coming for a while, company has struggled to follow through. Surprised it was not at 5p. Note, FD has not put his hand in his pocket

[masurenguy] 20/7/2015 08:10

RNS Number : 4345T
Sabien Technology Group PLC
20 July 2015

£770,000 Placing and Subscription to pursue new strategy for roll out of M2G systems

Sabien (AIM: SNT), the manufacturer and supplier of M2G, an energy efficiency technology, is pleased to announce that through Westhouse Securities Ltd ("Westhouse") it has conditionally placed with institutional and other investors (the "Placing") 9,860,000 new ordinary shares of 5 pence each (the "Placing Shares") and that TVI 2 Limited, an existing shareholder of the Company, has subscribed (the "Subscription") for 1,140,000 new ordinary shares of 5 pence each (the "Subscription Shares"). The Placing Shares and the Subscription Shares are being issued at 7 pence per share raising £770,000 (before expenses) for the Company.

Highlights

-- Placing and Subscription of 11,000,000 new ordinary shares at 7 pence per share to raise GBP770,000 from institutional and other investors.

-- Oversubscribed Placing to new and existing shareholders by Westhouse Securities Ltd as broker to the Company.

-- Admission to trading on AIM expected by no later than 28 August 2015.

-- The funds raised from the Placing and Subscription will provide Sabien with the capital necessary to support the new more aggressive strategy for the roll out of up to 35 M2G pilot projects for the Company's target client base in FY2016 (vs 10 in FY2015).

-- Before receipt of the Placing and Subscription funds the Company had a satisfactory net cash position of GBP1.1m. The funds received in the Placing and Subscription will be used to fund an increased roll out of pilot projects whilst ensuring that a prudent net cash position is maintained.

Alan O'Brien, Chief Executive Officer of Sabien said: "I am delighted that we have received support from our new and existing shareholders to fund the new strategy for the provision of substantially more M2G pilot projects. This new strategy is expected to reduce our sales cycle by up to 24 weeks by removing a significant barrier to clients agreeing to pilot programmes and to mark a step change in the rate of adoption of M2G by our target client base."

Background to and reasons for the Placing and Subscription

The Company announced on 15 June 2015 that it expected to report revenue of £1.9m, and a loss of up to £0.6m for the financial year to 30 June 2015. This was largely due to some substantial orders being delayed beyond June 2015, although the Company noted that the sales pipeline of £6.2m and a £1.1m net cash position were robust. The Company has built a strong reputation in the market place for boiler optimisation controls, built over 8 years of delivering successful client pilot and installation projects. To date the Company has charged clients for running pilot projects (typically c.£20k per pilot). However, the Company has found that many pilots have been delayed by the process of raising a purchase order and, for public sector clients, running a public tender in order to award the pilot. As a result start dates for pilots can be delayed by up to 24 weeks.

Historically, the Company has a high conversion rate from pilots to orders and a number of multi-million pound contracts have been secured in this way. Since 2004 the Company has converted 87% of M2G pilots to its sales pipeline and 69% to an estate-wide roll-out of the Company's technology. The Company now intends to cover the initial costs associated with the pilots itself in order to avoid the delays associated with raising purchase orders and/or a public tender process and to build on this successful method of generating substantial M2G orders. This will enable the Company to scale up the number of pilots it runs and to reduce the sales cycle in which they are delivered. The Company also expects this to give management more visibility over contract award and start dates. The cost of the pilots, including the M2G units, are expected to be recovered from customers for the part of the Company's pipeline which converts to roll-out.

The Company has a thorough selection process for identifying potential customers for its pilot programme and has already secured 10 customers and identified other potential customers for its 2015/16 programme of up to 35 pilots. The piloting season runs concurrently with the UK heating season, typically from October to April. The next piloting season 2015/16 will be divided into two phases of 18 and 17 pilots respectively. Phase 1 will run from October to December and phase 2 from January to April. Considering the time commitment and internal costs involved by selected customers in preparing for a pilot, the Company does not expect a decrease in the historic conversion rates from this new piloting strategy.

Based on the new "free" pilot strategy, the Company expects to see a substantial increase in it sales pipeline which should provide greater security over forecasts. The company is targeting a return to profitability by the year to June 2018 and has set itself five year targets of a sales pipeline of £25m, converting into annual turnover of £8m with a 25% EBITDA margin. The Company has already recruited some of the relevant personnel needed to scale up the number of pilots it can deliver and will provide a further update to the market on the pilot programme along with the final results for the year ended 30 June 2015, expected to be in October 2015.

Use of net proceeds

The net proceeds of the Placing and Subscription will be applied (i) to the recruitment of additional personnel required to run the additional pilots (up to 35 in FY2016 and then up to 50 in the following three years); (ii) to the development of the next generation of M2G; and (iii) for working capital purposes to ensure that the Company maintains a strong balance sheet whilst funding the increased number of pilots each year.

Admission

The Placing Shares have been conditionally placed with institutional and other investors by Westhouse Securities Ltd and the Subscription Shares have been subscribed for by TVI 2 Limited. The Placing Shares and the Subscription Shares will, when issued, rank pari passu with the Company's existing issued ordinary shares. It is expected that the Placing Shares and the Subscription Shares will be admitted to trading shortly after HMRC confirms in writing the Company's status in relation to investments by Enterprise Investment Schemes and Venture Capital Trusts and in any event not later than 28 August 2015. A further announcement will be made once confirmation by HMRC has been received and application has been made to AIM for admission of the Placing Shares and Subscription Shares ("Admission").

Placing statistics

Number of existing shares immediately prior to Admission 33,004,867
Number of Placing Shares and Subscription Shares being issued 11,000,000
Number of ordinary shares in issue following Admission 44,004,867
Issue price per Placing Share or Subscription Share 7p
Gross proceeds of the Placing and Subscription £770,000
Placing and subscription Shares c.25% of enlarged issued share capital

Conditionality

The Placing and Subscription are conditional upon, inter alia, receipt of the confirmation from HMRC of advanced assurance that the Placing Shares will be eligible shares for the purposes of section 285 (3) of the Income Tax Act 2007 and that the Placing Shares held by venture capital trusts will be "qualifying holdings" for the purposes of Chapter 4, Part 6, Income Tax Act 2007; the Company having received advanced assurance from HMRC that the Company will be a "qualifying company" and the Placing Shares will be eligible shares for the purposes of the Enterprise Investment Scheme; Admission becoming effective; and the placing agreement between the Company and Westhouse Securities and the subscription agreement between the Company and TVI 2 Limited becoming unconditional and not being terminated in accordance with their terms.

Proposed board changes

The Company also intends to appoint Bruce Gordon as Chairman. Miriam Maes will remain with the Company as a non-executive director. Bruce was formerly senior partner of Deloitte LLP responsible for the Southern Region and is currently the sole shareholder of Thames Valley Capital Ltd which is an advisor to TVI 2 Limited, a c.9% shareholder in the Company. As part of the Placing TVI 2 Limited has subscribed for 1,140,000 Subscription Shares and Bruce Gordon has personally subscribed for 1,425,000 Placing Shares. A further announcement will be made once the appointment of Bruce Gordon as chairman has been finalised.

[pj 1] 16/7/2015 18:54

Just for info, no arguements I hope :-//

Our 2 local schools in Lincs, according to the 'caretaker, have no plans for any alterations to the heating system over the summer holidays. Usual annual maintainance checks take place early October.

Perversly and obscenely imo- I took our son 4 weeks ago to undertake his annual review at Newark college. Bear with me as Newark college (although proudly Notts) comes under Lincs CC for educational purposes and as far as I am aware funding).

Despite the sun blazing, +70 temp the radiators were ON and all windows that could open were open. Same reports from Grantham College (definitely Lincs CC)

What a waste.

[pj 1] 17/6/2015 08:22

Mas. I do not want to get into any 'arguements' as I respect your investing research which you share on the BB

However in response to your last post

After winning contracts with LCC and MOD these alone should have opened numerous doors. To date it appears they have not yet they see fit to risk time and expense chasing new customers off shore with a distribution strategy involving 3rd parties which does not seem to be working in the UK. Why would it work abroad?

ref emotion, sorry, what is good for the goose....
''Masurenguy 10 Feb'15 - 08:33 - 446 of 465 1 0

I think that you have a tendency to get overemotional PJ1.

Attacking Managment. Maybe if they returned my phone calls or emails then communication would be more open , although I do not feel I am attacking them as such. The 'robust' sales pipeline, which never bears any correlation to Results is still being hidden behind. Have they not had a 'robust' sales pipeline for many years?

Basically I am at a loss to explain why such a great product with proven cost savings to customers with a relative short pay back period is not being maximised.

I can only think of one reason.

Genuinely good luck, its on my w/l for a reason, but instead of changing strategy maybe BoD needs some change?

What happened to the much trumpeted appointment of the Business Managers (sales managers)? Has their appointment resulted in any additional sales, or big mark up in the 'cough' Sales Pipeline?

[masurenguy] 17/6/2015 01:19

LOSSES TO WIDEN AT SABIEN TECHNOLOGY

Sabien Technology Group is set to report losses of up to £600,000 due to some "substantial orders" being delayed. The Watford-based manufacturer and supplier of M2G, an energy efficiency technology, said it expects to report revenues of about £1.9m for the year to 30 June 2015. But the listed company said it has a "satisfactory" net cash position of £1.1m despite the "shortfall in revenue and profit relative to management expectations".

The sales pipeline currently stands at £6.2m, compared with £6.9m at the time of the interim results in February and £5.8m at 30 June 2014. Sabien, which has previously charged clients for running pilots with its technology, said it plans to begin funding the pilot and associated costs itself in a move to reduce the length of its current sales cycle.

Sabien chief executive Alan O'Brien said: "Although we are disappointed to see some of the substantial orders we expected slip beyond June 2015 we are encouraged by the robustness of the sales pipeline and have prepared a five-year growth strategy focusing on improving the size and speed of conversion of sales prospects. This step change involving the provision of 'free' pilots is expected to reduce our sales cycle by up to 24 weeks by removing a significant barrier to clients agreeing pilot programmes."

Sabien is set to report its full-year results in October 2015.

[masurenguy] 17/6/2015 00:24

"The UK Market is well large enough without them having to search abroad with all the Risks that go with that, and from a standing start"

The UK market is large but that is no reason to ignore the potential low hanging fruit in certain overseas markets.

What risks exist in developing foreign sales ? These will all be handled by distributors so the support costs are minimal as is the investment in inventory.

"I think you are all too emotionally attached to this share. I shall not call it a POS yet as it is a great product. Ineffective Management though."

You have no basis to form any view either about my temperament or investing style. I don't get emotionally attached to any share and patronising comments such as this are totally unwarranted.

I have maintained a dialogue with the directors for several years and therefore have some insight into the issues that impact their sales and marketing strategy. I am happy to hold as previously expressed.

You have voted with your feet, exiting your investment 6 months ago. That is your prerogative since everyone has to make their own judgement calls. However as you're no longer invested here I don't see the purpose in attacking management or making condescending comments to other shareholders.

[pj 1] 16/6/2015 18:39

The UK Market is well large enough without them having to search abroad with all the Risks that go with that, and from a standing start.

The strategy here changes with every miss.

I think you are all too emotionally attached to this share. I shall not call it a POS yet as it is a great product. Ineffective Management though.

As a sideline non of our local schools in Lincs have yet to hear of anything about SNT

Good Luck

[wigwammer] 16/6/2015 14:28

No need for sleeping pills when yump is around. Share price goes up = yump says everything is good.Share price goes down = yump says everything is bad.Zzzzzzzzz...

[yump] 16/6/2015 13:23

Stay off the pills then ;-)

[wigwammer] 16/6/2015 10:09

I suddenly feel bullish.

[yump] 15/6/2015 12:50

I've said goodbye to my investment more or less. Should have known better having been heavily involved in getting an industrial product into very similar market in the past.

Free trial = last ditch attempt imo.

When you've got good customers and data, you should be able to get paid trials. The free trials are to 'get in' in the first place. If you can't sell the paid trial when you've already got a list of customers and reccommendations, then the organisation you're selling to isn't serious or the person/people you're trying to persuade don't have the authority or budget or inclination to do anything anyway.

Costs rise more than just for accounting for the trials themselves, because there is obviously more takeup, seeing as everyone you try to sell to now has no need for authority or budget. Sales force will say they are really busy and its all more positive of course.

But its more effort for less actual sales, let alone profit.
Dead duck imo.

[masurenguy] 15/6/2015 10:29

Very disappointing TU following their 'more confident' interim statement that H2 sales would result in a similar year end sales figure of £2.14m achieved last year. The only minor positive is that their anticipated H2 sales of £1.2m represent the same sales volume as H2 last year. This will be the second consecutive year of declining sales and increasing losses and they really need to successfully implement a new sales and marketing strategy to get sales growth back on track. Whether "free" pilot schemes will prove to be that trigger in the UK remains to be seen. They also need to make progress on overseas sales which accounted for only 9% of total revenue last year without any indication of whether this will have increased this year.

RNS Number : 1003Q
Sabien Technology Group PLC
15 June 2015

Trading Update

The Board of Sabien Technology Group plc (AIM: SNT), the manufacturer and supplier of M2G, an energy efficiency technology, announces that, in light of some substantial orders being delayed beyond June 2015, the Company now expects to report revenues of c.£1.9m and a loss of up to c.£0.6m in the financial year to 30 June 2015. While there is a shortfall in revenue and profit relative to management expectations, due to tight control of administrative expenses (in line with management expectations forecast to be at the same level as last year), the Company has a satisfactory net cash position of £1.1m. The sales pipeline currently stands at £6.2m which compares with £6.9m at the time of the interim results in February and £5.8m as at 30 June 2014.

Commenting on trading and the change in piloting strategy, Alan O'Brien, Chief Executive of Sabien said: "Although we are disappointed to see some of the substantial orders we expected slip beyond June 2015 we are encouraged by the robustness of the sales pipeline and have prepared a five-year growth strategy focusing on improving the size and speed of conversion of sales prospects. This step change involving the provision of "free" pilots is expected to reduce our sales cycle by up to 24 weeks by removing a significant barrier to clients agreeing pilot programmes.

In the UK Sabien has a strong reputation in the market place for boiler optimisation controls built on over 8 years of experience and know-how in delivering successful client pilots. We have a high conversion rate from pilots to orders and a number of multi-million pound orders have been secured. We believe scaling the number of pilots and making it easier for our clients to work with us is the correct course of action to take.

Since 2004, we have converted 87% of M2G pilots to our sales pipeline and 69% of pilots have led to an estate-wide roll-out. A number of pilots which ran during the 2014/2015 heating season and which concluded in April 2015 are not yet reflected in the pipeline as we are in the process of finalising the business case with the clients.

To date we have charged clients for running pilots, but going forward Sabien will fund the pilot and the associated costs of the pilot M2G units will be reflected in the final roll-out business case. This does away with private sector clients having to raise a purchase order for the full value of the pilot before it commences. This process can take weeks if not months before an order is placed on us. Public sector clients frequently have to run a public tender for a pilot which also causes delays in receiving a pilot order. We estimate this step change will reduce the sales cycle by up to 24 weeks.

Our rationale of charging for pilots was a sensible one as we were a new entrant company looking to build its reputation, gain sales traction and preserve cash from what was effectively a 'stand still' start we now have achieved a significant foothold in the UK market with over 9,000 M2G installations. We are scaling up the number of M2G pilots we will run in any one heating season as we believe this will give management better visibility and predictability of contract award and start dates.

We have already started the process of recruiting the relevant personnel needed to scale our business to include Data Analysts, Business Development Managers, Engineers and Project Managers."

A further update will be provided to the market with the final results anticipated to be in October 2015.

[masurenguy] 16/4/2015 19:12

Sabien’s M2G proves its value for Durham County Council
8th April 2015

Seven sites were selected to reflect the diversity of buildings across the estate and also the range of boiler and control types installed. The M2Gs were installed in phases between November 2013 and October 2014 and Sabien managed the entire project, working closely with all the stakeholders across the County Council. The data was analysed in line with the principles of IPMVP. “The M&V project delivered by Sabien enabled us to establish what level of savings were possible across our estate. The level of detail and analysis provided by Sabien was very impressive. This project has now enabled further installations of M2Gs across our estate to reduce our energy spend and carbon emissions.”
Marc Charlton, Carbon Management Officer, Durham County Council.

The buildings selected for the pilot included County Hall, four leisure centres and two other office buildings and the number of boilers ranged from one to three. In each case the M2G works alongside the various building management systems across the sites to add to the energy savings that are already being achieved by existing control strategies. Across the seven sites the energy savings ranged from 6% to 11%, giving the average of 7% across all sites with a predicted annual reduction in CO2emissions of 238 tonnes. Following the M&V project Durham County Council have installed M2G across 14 of their sites.

[here and there] 16/2/2015 12:09

they ignore retail investors unfortunately and there is no stock available for II to purchase

[masurenguy] 16/2/2015 11:28

Interesting article on Sabien by Investors Champion after a site visit last week. Salient points include:

* Sabien has the infrastructure in place to support the sale and installation of 600-800 units per month which represents a sales value of circa £1.0 to £1.5m.

* The clients that have a pilot in place, or have already undergone a pilot usage of the M2G, make up the Group’s sales pipeline which currently stands at £6.9m. Competition.

* Despite very disappointing interims, broker Westhouse Securities believes that the full-year sales forecast of £3m can be achieved since orders already obtained for delivery in 2015 total £2m and any further contract wins this year will further boost sales in the year current and next year.

* House broker forecasts sales of £3.9m and PBT of £800K in 2016. This would represent eps of 2.1p which represents a PER of circa 9 at the current share price of 19p.

Read the complete article here:

[masurenguy] 10/2/2015 11:05

The concept is proven and the benefits are evident. The problem is to effectively motivate third party UK distributors, who sell many different products and services, and to overcome customer inertia especially when gas prices have fallen and the impetus to innovate further savings is diminished.

Unlock this conundrum in order to attain success. I think that they have to take greater control of the marketing and sales activity direct to the end user in the UK and hand the business on a plate to their distributors who will get their cut from undertaking the installation. Overseas is a different ball game but there is a big market of low hanging fruit to exploit so at this stage of development they should just regard export business as incremental.

[yump] 10/2/2015 09:51

We had a product for new or retrofit onto industrial premises and if I remember (it was a while ago!), the list of obstacles ran like this:

Convince the project manager or on-site maintenance manager.
Then get a meeting with a project team.
Get pointed in the direction of their on-site contractors for 'evaluation' (kiss of death). On-site contractors didn't really want to change anything at all.
Debate about 'extras' and budget between project manager and contractor.
Delay.
Budget approval for next year.

Then the lottery of:

Project manager changes.
On-site maintenance contractor changes.
Head Office tech. guys poke their noses in with a 'we need to do trials first'.

Go back to start but do not collect £200.

In comparison with our business, this one doesn't have admin. costs that increase with revenue the way ours did, otherwise I wouldn't even be looking !

[masurenguy] 10/2/2015 08:49

Some good and objective insight by yump. I agree with his comment "I've been in a new industrial product business like this and gaining traction did seem to be like banging your head against a wall. Until someone has a bright idea or another company gets hold of it seriously - which is unfortunately often a matter of luck."

This is the key to the future successful exploitation of both M2G and the new M1G and this is where they now have to focus their attention !

[joesoap3] 10/2/2015 08:44

Really disappointed with this, I have ben here 5 years and had high hopes to begin with but this last few years results have all been the same statement - disappointing first half but the 2nd half looks good - but it never happens.

I thought that having a CEO with such a large holding would give every incentive to progress but with his holding and Amati together, there is almost 50% of the company so nothing is going to change as far as I can see as they basically control the company.

So its probably time for pastures new, I think I've been patient enough and I suspect that with these results others may think the same

[yump] 10/2/2015 08:34

Well I'm hoping that I'm looking at it reasonably objectively, having not been invested in the series of hope and gloom rises and drops. If the share price doesn't do much in the next few days will probably buy a few as there's a few snippets in there eg. the comment about white-labelling and some other initiatives which at least show they are trying to generate sales in different ways.

Main reason for interest actually is the apparent potential gearing of profit to increased sales, which of course is still an 'IF', but it does simplify the assessment.

The reporting of the pipelines etc. is something else, which by the look of the past is worth ignoring and just wait to see what happens in practice !

I've been in a new industrial product business like this and gaining traction did seem to be like banging your head against a wall. Until someone has a bright idea or another company gets hold of it seriously - which is unfortunately often a matter of luck. On the other hand until we 'got out there', the sitting in the office following the original strategy simply did not work. Irons in the fire etc. etc.