Sagentia Grp Share Discussion Threads

[elgordo] 18/12/2007 21:51

Odd goings on at


Until recently, this simply brought up a Chord Capital holding page (see the Google cached page dated 28 November - )

...but now brings up a couple of old webpages (e.g. "expects to launch commercial services in Europe in late 2006"). Nice to reminisce about previous - now cruely dashed - hopes, but apart from that I wonder why the change?


Also news from Atraverda, though I don't pretend to understand what it means - the "another step forward" in the headline is about all I can grasp.

[jonwig] 18/12/2007 18:31

Ha, Ha!!

I need to do a write-up to refresh my memory of what stuff is worth, in terms of p/sh. The results should be appealing, but obviously need a wealth warning.

[elgordo] 18/12/2007 18:26

Well, seeing it move up would certainly make a nice change from this year. Can you post a link when you write up your analysis for the TMF compo?

Do you think if buildings could indeed talk, what they said would be with any foundation?

[jonwig] 18/12/2007 16:17

Thanks, ElG. 'Building Talk' ..... ?

By the way, SGA is my 2008 pick in the TMF share competition.
For best-performing share upwards, note.

[elgordo] 18/12/2007 16:10

Article on HD LED here -



Not sure I've seen this comment before -

"The first HD LED products will be available from early 2008."

[adejuk] 17/12/2007 15:33

there's just no more downside here is there
at this rate we'll be sub 1p in no time

[jonwig] 14/12/2007 08:48

SGA did pretty big consultancy work for the BBC recently:



I hope they charged them plenty! (As much as they paid to have themselves re-branded?)

[elgordo] 09/12/2007 20:15

Som encouraging news on Turftrax (SGA owns 10%) from this article in the Telegraph last month -



"...the Racing Post started carrying sectional times produced by TurfTrax. That is a tentative but significant beginning."

[elgordo] 02/12/2007 18:43

Very positive article about M-Pesa in the Business section of the Sunday Times -



"The take-up we have had in the first nine months is astonishing."

"The M-Pesa platform has also been exported to Afghanistan and Tanzania, with giant markets such as India the ultimate prize."

Of course, we still have no idea whether Sagentia will get any financial benefit from its growth or expansion into other countries, or if they simply got some consultancy fees up-front. If (as I'm afraid to admir seems the more likely) the latter, at least it should help for them to be associated with such an innovative and successful project.

[jonwig] 30/11/2007 18:44

Consultancy report done for OFCOM:

[jonwig] 28/11/2007 15:22

HD LED is on the SGA website now, and has its own. Looks promising (like everything else out of SGA ...):

[adejuk] 23/11/2007 22:23

thx jon
good w/e

[jonwig] 21/11/2007 19:21

Buck up, Ade.
Here's something that could be a company maker in itself ...

Tech hothouse lights up the operating theatre

By Lautaro Vargas, 21 November 2007
The ability of a Cambridge hi-tech consultancy to produce a cost-effective LED with a wide beam that faithfully recreates the colours of its target has opened the door for its mass global adoption in major surgical theatres



Then there's Atraverda, going great guns, M-PESA (assuming we get a slice of the action, not just a fee), etc., etc.

AND ... we haven't fallen today.

[adejuk] 20/11/2007 18:28

i have great confidence in sphere but i am rapidly losing it in the mgmt of this co
shareholder value is going down the pan
never could stand 'great topup op'
this is rapidly turning into a dog
have no real choice but to hold now
overweight and v much offside
might as well sulk, get stubborn and write it off with the forlorn hope that maybe one day.........

[adejuk] 20/11/2007 18:24

we'll be at 1p soon

[jonwig] 09/11/2007 15:03

This article gives a bit more background to Atraverda's recent fundraising, but still not the key things - stake and valuation.

[jonwig] 09/11/2007 12:14

Thanks ElG, I wouldn't have spotted it!
Exciting stuff going on, we hope.
Some thoughts:

•At Sagentia
we are helping clients such
as Vodafone address this new
opportunity [managed service element]
by tightly binding
product development and
manufacture to managed
service creation and delivery

Are we getting a slice of the profits on this sort of deal?
Impression was that we would, under the new strategy.

• I always did rate Turftrax, now they've asked SGA to expand and upgrade their offering.
Again, profits, we hope. And good to see SGAI is alive and well.

•Both Apple and Dell's
high profile product
recalls of more than one
million Sony-powered
laptops has raised concerns over
battery safety, affecting clients
everywhere but particularly
in the industrial, military and
consumer sectors.

Investors in CMF please note!

•M-PESA ... Vodafone will be making lots of money out of this, will we get a slice, or just the fee?

[elgordo] 08/11/2007 19:01

Autumn edition has (belatedly) been published -



I haven't read it yet, which conveniently gets me out of having to comment on the content.

[adejuk] 05/11/2007 09:27

JON
never doubted it but
SNAP!

[jonwig] 05/11/2007 07:43

Heaves sigh of relief.

[jonwig] 05/11/2007 07:43

The board of Sagentia Group AG, a leading integrated technology consulting,
development and venturing organisation, today issued the following trading
update for the year ending 31 December 2007.


Year to date order intake for the Company's consulting activities to the end of
October 2007 is £15.4m, up 12% year-on-year (2006: £13.7m). The consulting
activities have returned to profitability during the second half and Directors
are confident that full year order intake for 2007 will comfortably exceed that
of 2006 (£15.9m).


The outlook for the technology development consulting market remains positive
and trading remains in line both with the Board's expectation and statements
made in the Company's Interim statement issued on 5th September 2007.

[elgordo] 02/11/2007 20:01

Yes, you'd like to think that one or more of their bright ideas could actually be commercialised and lead to some incremental revenue sooner or later. The cardboard can first got mentioned around October last year, I think. Then there was their bar codes for poker cards, electronic dipstick, intelligent power switching...

Even when things do reach the market and prove successful, like M-PESA, it is far from clear what - if any - share of revenue Sagentia gets. They did talk about moving more towards a revenue sharing model awhile ago, and at the time I suggested that this could lead to a short term dip in revenues (trading up-front fees for a share of future revenues). Whether we're yet to get past that dip and into revenue growth remains to be seen.

In the meantime, I notice that the Autumn edition of The Gen (if there's going to be one) is overdue - last year in came out in mid-October.

[jonwig] 02/11/2007 07:45

And this could be a money-spinner?

Sagentia has developed a prototype cardboard can which has the same qualities as a traditional aluminium can, but with added cost and environmental benefits.

Sagentia says the 'can' is easy to make in the laboratory and it is looking for a manufacturing partner to take the product into full production.

The can costs around US18 cents per unit, and is able to be manufactured on a small scale, or in multiple sizes on a single manufacturing line.

Sagentia says the development opens up the possibility of creating cardboard aerosols in the future.

[jonwig] 01/11/2007 15:12

More on Atraverda fundraising, though we don't have a basis here for current valuation.
Surely there's room for a big uplift with this company?

Bad For Batteries, Good For Atraverda

Battery makers may be fuming over the skyrocketing cost of lead, but at least one startup says it has benefited handily. And it's hoping a new funding infusion will help maintain that momentum.

South Wales-based Atraverda said Wednesday it had pulled in $21.5 million in a second round of funding. Atraverda has developed a ceramic-based material it calls Ebonex that can be used as a single electrode that acts as both the positive and negative sides of a battery. It can reduce the amount of lead required for batteries by as much as 50 percent, the company said.

A year ago, Atraverda was promoting Ebonex as a tool to create high-performance batteries, boosting energy efficiency significantly. But with the cost of lead up 80 percent in the past year, according to price indexes, and battery manufacturers feeling pressured to reduce carbon emissions from manufacturing, the company's main selling points have shifted.

"We were always about the performance benefit, but the tide is beginning to change with lead prices up so dramatically along with the interest in carbon footprints," said CEO Andrew Dixey. "Timing is a wonderful thing, and what's unfortunate for the battery industry has aided us enormously."

That atmosphere has created a flurry of activity for Atraverda over the last year, Dixey said. New customers testing its materials include the United States' East Penn Manufacturing, India's Exide Industries Limited and Ukraine's Vladar Enterprise.

Atraverda -- which raised its first round of around $12 million at the end of 2004 -- will spend its funding infusion to build a production facility to keep up with demand, Dixey said.

The international group of funders includes Denmark's BankInvest New Energy Solutions, Portugal's Espirito Santo Ventures. Existing investors include Scottish Equity Partners, Chord Capital and Finance Wales from the United Kingdom and EnerTech Capital and OnPoint Technologies from the United States.

[jonwig] 31/10/2007 16:10

New financing round for Atraverda, involves Chord Capital: