Science Share Discussion Threads

[jonwig] 19/12/2009 11:33

The GCI article mentioned in April, just been flagged up on my alerts:

Sagentia looks significantly oversold
BUY

08/04/2009 Oliver Haill

On account of over-caution or anomaly, technology consultant Sagentia, an adviser to blue-chips including Vodafone and AstraZeneca, is valued at a significant discount to net assets.

Sold down from 45p to 16.5p since transferring its Swiss domicile to the UK and its full listing to AIM, the company's shares are priced at a 75 per cent discount to its 71.9p of shareholders funds. Most of the value of these assets is based on its ownership of the freehold land and buildings of its Cambridge headquarters, lately valued at £15.3 million, against which the company has a £9 million mortgage. Yet, with a cash pile of £5.3 million, net debt at December's year-end amounted to a much-reduced £4.2 million, leaving the present market price tag looking undercooked.

Until last year, the company had operated as a technology incubator alongside its consultancy business, spinning out high-tech start-ups into its 'venturing portfolio'. Last year, new chief executive Dr Alistair Brown changed the company's focus 'from earnings to equity', with a plan to sell off this portfolio, concentrate on consultancy and exploit its own intellectual property.

A £2 million fall in the 'fair value' of this portfolio last year, combined with the £589,000 cost of re-domiciliation, meant Sagentia lost £2.2 million pre-tax. However, excluding these residual investments, the new core business, technology consulting and intellectual property (IP), performed admirably.

After a significant recruitment drive last year, through which Brown added the 'content-rich people' needed to dream up new ideas and sell them to clients, revenues increased 27 per cent to £26.6 million, driving gross profits 280 per cent higher to £1.9 million. 'The recruitment campaign has allowed us to concentrate much more on sales and marketing,' says Brown, 'and we have seen continuing demand for our services.'

Indeed, there is demand for Sagentia's technology consulting skills – provided through offices in the UK, the US, Germany, Hong Kong and Sweden – from many industries. Vodafone came to Sagentia with an open brief to devise a mobile means of providing financial services to the developing world's 'unbanked', while AstraZeneca requested an automated drug identification system. Sagentia delivered the goods and, as well as rolling out Vodafone's M-PESA mobile money transfer service in Kenya, Tanzania and Afghanistan, other projects completed during the year included a robotic camera holder for use in keyhole surgery and a colour-balancing surgical light.

The robotic camera won an award form the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons, while the company's innovative power-shower took home a Queen's Award for Innovation.

Under its IP-exploitation banner, Sagentia receives £100,000 a year from licensing out its technology to AstraZeneca, and last year another idea was taken up by US water-meter giant Master Meter, which signed an exclusive licence deal for the use of an automatic meter-reading technology expected to generate up to $4.5 million (£3.1 million) in royalties.

Sagentia has set up a self-styled 'IP exec' to sift through its myriad of money-spinning ideas and take the best ones to potential clients. The IP pipeline includes sensors for the car industry and a special 'nanoheat' technology that could be used in a variety of applications.

Brown insists demand remains robust and recounts that, compared with the last time the country entered recession, when his sales department rang with the sound of silence, 'this time the phones are still ringing'.

'Innovation has stayed at the top of the company agendas,' he says, 'They are conservative about defending margins and a lot of clients are talking about positioning themselves for the end of the recession and leapfrogging those competitors that don't innovate.'

Underpinned by property assets, more than covering all debt, analysts forecast strong growth at Sagentia, set to deliver adjusted profits of £1.3 million and 4.5p of earnings in 2009. A return to confidence among investors could result in a considerable rerating.

[jonwig] 16/12/2009 15:39

Sagentia, part of a consortium led by GlaxoSmithKline, is delivering a step change improvement in advanced secondary pharmaceutical manufacturing in the UK.

The aim of the project is to substantially improve manufacturing efficiency within the UK pharmaceutical industry for the production of the largest proportion of dosage forms - tablets. The consortium will work to prove a new way of making tablets, which instead of using a batch-based process will use continuous processing.

This approach aims to dramatically reduce the cost of pharmaceutical manufacture, thereby enabling UK companies to compete more effectively with lower cost economies. The efficiency gains are targeted at improving manufacturing precision, productivity and mass yield, and will be deliverable at approximately 70% of the capital cost of conventional technology.

The consortium is made up of partners from industry and academia and includes GlaxoSmithKline, GEA Pharma Systems Ltd., Siemens Industrial Automation and Drives Technology, University of Warwick, Newcastle University and Sagentia.

The Technology Strategy Board, the government funded body that supports technological innovation in the UK, is funding the project as part of a £24 million investment in high-value manufacturing projects. This fund was launched in January 2009 by the Technology Strategy Board. Businesses from a broad range of industries were invited to form consortia to compete for funding.

The funding was awarded to 33 projects, which include important research and development into the effectiveness of processes used in drugs manufacture and research which could help in the search for a cure for cancer. Only 50% of the projects that met the assessment criteria were successful in gaining funding.

Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board, said: "This investment is intended to maintain and develop the international competitiveness of UK manufacturing companies against a backdrop where manufacturing often gravitates to countries with lower overall costs. It's also important to ensure that companies continue to innovate during the downturn to ensure a successful recovery for the UK economy. This is part of a concerted drive to help to unlock competitive potential in high value manufacturing."

Adrian Howson, Head of Pharmaceutical Process at Sagentia, comments: "We are delighted to be involved in this project. Traditional tablet manufacturing process has evolved into one that is easy to regulate but very manual and therefore expensive to operate in western economies. As a result, manufacturing capacity is being exported to Asia Pacific where labour costs are lower and UK manufacturing plants are already starting to close. This is an important opportunity for the UK pharmaceutical industry to maintain worldwide competitiveness in pharmaceutical manufacture."

[jonwig] 15/12/2009 21:33

Pharma developments, and ? £££ ?

[jonwig] 10/12/2009 15:20

Prize for HD-LED application:



Brandon hold the medical IP rights, SAG the rest, as the CEO said. Will this show us the money?

[jonwig] 08/12/2009 14:46

Hello, Colonel.

At some point they'll find a way of making money and releasing shareholder value. I just hope I'm still around to profit from that!

[colonel a] 08/12/2009 11:05

Just one of the lads then ?
It's good to see you keep the faith jonwig.

[jonwig] 08/12/2009 10:23

CEO Interview:

[jonwig] 25/11/2009 09:18

Positive news from Atraverda:

[jonwig] 06/11/2009 15:53

Could be useful:

[targatarga] 27/10/2009 21:04

any ideas as what these were called pre smart approach ? tia

[jonwig] 30/9/2009 10:56

Good to see a positive market reaction to the appointment of an outside CEO.
Whatever his merits, confirmation of Dan Flicos would have suggested more of the same, I think.

[colonel a] 31/8/2009 09:05

Jonwig,

I don't think I'm being retrospectively wise.
The NAV, special dividend and buyback price were all on the table back in march.
The only unknown was what percentage of shares would be redeemed.

It was a no lose situation to take the divi and hold the shares - except for a PI who has to be really keen, to hold unlisted shares.
But for SAG it should have been a gift.

Can;t say I'm too impressed with a deferred consideration having been on the books either.

These guys may have lots of big brains but there do appear to be some blind spots.

Ditto on the frustrating investment.
Loath to dump them as they should eventually come good.
I hope.

[jonwig] 30/8/2009 17:02

Colonel - re. CMR: well, you're saying that now and being wise after the event. (I suppose that's a lot better than not being wise at all!)
These disposals were part of the current strategy, so it's consistent - and Sphere and Atraverda are on the list of course.

This has to be my most frustrating investment - just in profit and along comes a bit of recession; assets of 63p but no obvious way of realising them.

[colonel a] 27/8/2009 09:31

Did these people really take 20p per share for CMR in march ?
When they could have had 17p and still held the shares at roughly the same valuation !!

Can't think why they're not making money.

[jonwig] 16/8/2009 11:39

The April 2009 Aimzine article:



And the July 2009 follow-up:



Summer 2009 issue of The Gen; download here:

[jonwig] 30/7/2009 08:41

Collaboration with Sagentia:

[jonwig] 06/5/2009 11:44

Sphere Medical news: self-monitoring device for HIV etc.

[jonwig] 23/4/2009 17:13

Atraverda news. Electric and hybrid vehicles, obviously!

Wales battery could revolutionise the world

23/4/2009

A Wales partnership is set to revolutionise the world battery industry by producing batteries up to 40% lighter, 20% smaller, and with a much longer lifespan than traditional lead acid ones.

The University of Glamorgan's new research and development facility will be at the heart of a programme to test and develop bi-polar batteries using unique components manufactured by Atraverda, an advanced materials company with headquarters in Wales.

Bi-polar batteries are widely regarded as having the best potential to replace the traditional lead acid battery in many applications.

They are more environmentally friendly, using up to 50% less lead and produce 80% less CO2 during the manufacturing process and are 100% recyclable.

Bi-polar lead acid batteries have significant advantages over the newer battery systems, like lithium ion, in terms of cost versus performance for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Opening the new facility the First Minister Rhodri Morgan said, "This alliance between industry and academia has tremendous potential to develop the next generation of battery technology here in Wales.

"It opens up exciting possibilities which could have a major impact not just on the global industry but also on our everyday lives.

"The University of Glamorgan/Atraverda partnership agreement illustrates the importance of industry and academia working together to take research and development that step further and create new highly innovative commercial products."

Michael Gilchrist, CEO of Atraverda, said: "This collaboration is evidence that Wales is on the leading edge of green energy storage technology. The intended result of this cooperative work will move our bi-polar battery closer to commercialisation."



And this:

[jonwig] 23/4/2009 09:05

Sphere medical news:

[jonwig] 14/4/2009 10:30

An unexpected blow.
He'd been in the job about a year and was quite young:

Death of Chief Executive

It is with deep and profound sadness that we report the tragic and totally unexpected death of Alistair Brown, the Chief Executive of the Sagentia Group PLC. After a short illness, Alistair passed away over the Easter weekend. He leaves a wife and two teenage children.

Alistair joined Sagentia in 2000 as business development manager and was responsible for establishing the Company's operations in Germany. He was appointed Chief Executive of the Sagentia Group in March 2008 and successfully changed the strategic direction of the Company.

The Board of Sagentia will shortly begin the process of identifying a new Chief Executive. However, until this process is complete, Daniel Flicos, the Company's Commercial Director, will assume full operational control of the business.

Dan has been with the Company since 1993. He has occupied a number of senior management positions, including a period as President of the US Operations. Over the last year Dan has worked closely with Alistair in determining and implementing the new strategic direction of the business.

Chris Masters

Chairman

[mjcrockett] 08/4/2009 10:21

There was also a full page article in the April 'Growth Company Investor' under the heading 'Sagentia looks seriously oversold'.

Aimzine will be publishing a follow up piece on Sagentia next month.

Michael

[jonwig] 08/4/2009 09:41

Atraverda news:



Quite a bit of interest lately: maybe connected with the presentations, etc. mentioned in the Aimzine article.

[jonwig] 31/3/2009 19:31

Thanks MJC - I did register once then lost my details.

A good article - lots of small detail which hasn't been announced.