madmogul
06 Apr 2018
price rise anyone know reason for price rise?MM
Hoppel
23 Mar 2017
Update Did anyone go to the presentation yesterday? Was the financing of the share buy-back discussed?
Hoppel
31 Oct 2016
Cyprotex In case you missed it, Cyprotex is being acquired by evotec (RNS 26/10/16). Among Cyprotex's shareholders are Oryx International Growth Fund Limited (11.11%) and Harwood Capital (0.44%). This exit should hopefully free up additional firepower for EKF!
Hoppel
15 Sep 2016
Re: Investor briefing I would expect CM to take this firm private, in similar fashion as done with SBS.
optimistic2
13 Sep 2016
Investor briefing Hello all,Did anyone manage to attend the investor briefing last night? I would be grateful for anything you can share regarding the company's performance, and in particular, future performance....to help me make up my mind on whether to sell or hold..ThanksOptimistic2
Hoppel
12 Sep 2016
Panmure TP up to 17.5p Panmure TP up to 17.5p
Sambram
12 Sep 2016
Back on track? "EKF’s interims show its recovery is gathering pace. The business has returned to growth and margins are improving as a result of the actions taken by management. The outlook is positive (management again guiding towards the top end of its £3.5-4.0m target) and we see upside potential to our forecasts, which we prudently leave unchanged for now."Broker update from Singers on Research Tree
Hoppel
29 Jul 2016
Offer for SourceBioscience Chris Mills' fund buying SourceBioscience. Read the 2.7 announcement (Board recommendation part) and you can get a sense as to what may happen to EKF....
Hoppel
26 Jul 2016
Getting close My hunch is that CM will buy up to 30% -1 share. Then launch a low-ball takeover offer, at say 20p. That either teases out a competing bid from a trade buyer, e.g. Alere, BD, Abbott, etc. or, if it doesn't, gives CM a fair chance to own the whole at a fair price, and to build it out over 2-3 years and then sell to trade. Either way, CM is bound to get a good return, either as a quick flip or over a more conventional holding period.
grogg
03 Jun 2016
Re: EKF debt reduction At least good to see a couple of the directors dipping in. Christopher Mills must be nudging towards 30% now?
Simbr
03 Jun 2016
EKF debt reduction Just took this by Panmure from Research Tree… "The transformation of EKF continues with a reduction in debt through a £4.75m placing (gross) and a positive update highlighting that both sales and EBITDA remain ahead of budget. We retain our FY forecasts for the moment but are increasingly confident that our estimates are achievable, with the prospect of upgrades later in the year. Ongoing restructuring should ultimately improve profitability, though we highlight the potential for near term disruption. "
Simbrad
03 Jun 2016
"The transformation of EKF continues with a reduction in debt through a £4.75m placing (gross) and a positive update highlighting that both sales and EBITDA remain ahead of budget. We retain our FY forecasts for the moment but are increasingly confident that our estimates are achievable, with the prospect of upgrades later in the year. Ongoing restructuring should ultimately improve profitability, though we highlight the potential for near term disruption." Panmure's note out this morning on Research Tree
Hoppel
15 Apr 2016
Re: Presentation Hi OPThank you very much for the detailed transcript!Hoppel
Oofy Prosser
14 Apr 2016
Re: Presentation Hi Hoppel, all, Yes, I went to this and found it very useful and informative, if less upbeat than the last presentation I went to 2 years ago !With the caveat that I am very much an amateur / part-time investor (please forgive my non-financial language) the key points I took away from it were:1. The whole caboodle very nearly went to the wall. With the Selah fiasco (which, Julian said on the face of it could not have been anticipated) and the Mexico defaulters, the last year was a perfect storm. With the cost cutting measure taken, and the focus on core business the company can now meet its costs from reasonably (see below) anticipated receipts. Debt is high, but manageable (although we are not bomb proof). No real impetus/objective to pay it down (I asked the finance director). Re-financing is under active consideration, although the present lenders remain very supportive.2. The parting with Ron Z was sudden, unexpected and appeared still a little raw. It arose from a disagreement about the way forward. I assume RZ wanted a break-up sale sooner than Julian and Chris. The company will look to be proactive in the very near future rearranging the debt provision RZ has provided. They do not know what he intends to do with his (substantial) holding.3. Chris Mills had apparently confirmed that morning to the broker briefing he has no intention of taking the company private, although he may increase his stake (which might solve the RZ share holding issue, provided there is no Mexican stand off, no pun intended). Julian said that Chris's modus operandi was apparent from his cv. In answer to a direct question Julian said (to clumsily paraphrase) that he did not expect EKF to exist as a free standing company in three years time, although it would still be around in 18-24 months. The strategy is clearly to build the core point of care business to make us a (very) attractive proposition to bigger fish in that time scale.4. No plans to expand the BoD, although they may look for some non-execs with industry knowledge / experience (which counts me out, unfortunately !).5. With all of the above in mind, the accounting and forecasting now would be extremely conservative and would ignore "potential" contract wins or developments. Business for the first quarter 2016 was running around +10% on forecasts. From now the only surprises in that regard would be positive (and I think all shareholders should say amen to that).6. In line with the above, projections have not included the prospect of any recovery from the written off debts in Mexico, notwithstanding the fact that legal action is being taken over there (we had a good laugh about that, as you can imagine - "you can stand it wi' bandit"
, nor the fact that we have recovered a substantial amount of the product which 'may' have a resale value.7. EKF also holds around 9.3m of its own shares as a result of the Mexico shenanigans (as I understand it). There is no decision yet on what to do about this, There was obviously concerns about alienating shareholders by putting them on the market (good !), but I suppose they also want to see how the RZ situation pans out. It seems to me that they might as well just cancel them, if the plan is to prepare us for sale, but what do I know ? Still, even at the present value that is £1m of equity that (I feel) we should try to realise or utilise asap.All in all, I think we will exceed the forecast £3m profit this year, but not by a significant amount, teen digits I would guess. Then probably just build on this in a steady way. The shares might go up or down (probably both) over the next year, but I am hopeful that in a couple of years or so EKF will be bought out for a reasonable premium on the current price. However, it is hard to see where the substantial profit growth will come from, so this is no get rich quick play especially if, like me, you have a 22p average.All the above just personal thoughts and ramblings,
Hoppel
13 Apr 2016
Presentation Did anyone go? Was it useful?
