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|2023-12-04
"Siemens Healthineers aims to expand photon-counting scanning technology to 1 billion patients over next decade.
Siemens Healthineers aims to scan 1 billion patients with photon-counting based computed tomography scanners within the next decade, bringing its unique state-of-the-art imaging within reach of more and more communities."
The company is investing €80 million (over £65 million) to expand photon-counting CT manufacturing in Forchheim, Germany
a serious investment in CZT manufacturing and tech I don't think they would commit to this if they had any doubts on the commercial return on capital investment.
https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/en-uk/press-room/press-features/photon-counting-expansion
Off to a good start….5.0 -5.20 up 7%
Follow up by supernumerary
Jak - they're right down the bottom of the page...
This is just the first lot - not saying anything new...
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T Burley
26 DECEMBER, 2023
It's tiny and still loss-making after more than a decade in business and many funding rounds. It's not to a business, it's a customer charity transferring shareholders funds to them every day year after year. If it had scaled to billions or at least a few hundred million over these decades and was ...
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Recommend (31)
Andrew Lapping
26 DECEMBER, 2023
As a long suffering shareholder, try making a profit or get out of the way and let someone else try.The company has had numerous fundraisings, pre and post IPO, at ever decreasing values.
Time to make a profit
Recommend (15)
Jonathon Cole
26 DECEMBER, 2023
The owner is part of the problem. He has persistently avoided investing and expanding to a greater scale required to boost profitability because he , like many science based entrepreneurs, he is afraid of / doesn’t understand dilution. They dont like losing control
He should have raised more fund...
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Recommend (12)
S Evans
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Kromek has consistently come back to shareholders for funds at massive discounts, no way would the CEO have been able to obtain funds elsewhere if it was not public.
As a shareholder I have been Distinctly unimpressed with the CEO and the board, the CEO continues to reward himself with a bloated sal...
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Recommend (9)
Ian Caswell
26 DECEMBER, 2023
What a terrible example. After 10 years floated only £17m turnover and a massive £7m loss. Pity the poor shareholders. Looks like a very poorly run company that will eventually change management or go bust.
The market has reacted exactly the way it should to a rubbish business.
Recommend (9)
M Hedges
26 DECEMBER, 2023
What retail investors do understand is that when it comes to return on investment, the top line by itself is meaningless. A wafer thin gross margin and an eye watering loss at the operating level are of far more interest. An extremely high cash burn and constant dilution at lower and lower prices a...
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Recommend (6)
T Nicholson
26 DECEMBER, 2023
It sounds like a very clever business but if you’re not turning profit after a decade and having had multiple funding rounds, perhaps it is the business?
Recommend (5)
P Norton
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Blaming the market is shooting the messenger. Prices are information and the information this share price is telling you is that this is a rubbish company. If it were any good then a private buyer would have bought it or if the management back it, why not do a MBO?
Of course the market isn’t always...
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Recommend (4)
Charles Mitchell
26 DECEMBER, 2023
Not only not profitable but they have had numerous fund raising. So no wonder the market values lowly.
Interesting company, but would only buy on improved financial performance.
Recommen
Recent article from JakNife over on ADVFN.
======================
Kromek boss ‘might not have listed technology company on Aim’
Arnab Basu joins other technology bosses ‘frustrated’ with London’s small-cap market after his firm’s share price dropped more than 90 per cent since 2013
Katie Prescott, Technology Business Editor
Tuesday December 26 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Times
Arnab Basu, the chief executive of Kromek, argues that technology businesses that require time and investment to grow are often ignored by UK investors in favour of short-term successes
The boss of Kromek has said that with hindsight he might not have listed the scanning technology business on London’s junior stock market, adding his voice to those of other British technology chief executives who complain that the City lacks understanding of the sector.
The share price of the Co Durham-based company, which designs and makes high-specification materials for security and medical imaging, has fallen by more than 90 per cent since it was listed on Aim in 2013, despite Kromek increasing its revenue and market share.
Arnab Basu said it was “frustrating that the company’s value isn’t recognised”. The business, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, made £17 million of revenue in 2022, a 44 per cent rise from the year before.
However, it has yet to make a profit, suffering an adjusted pre-tax loss of £7 million in 2023, down from £7.8 million the year before. About a third of its revenue is from the United States and a fifth from Britain.
Kromek is covered by only one firm of City analysts — Cavendish, part of the finnCap Group. In July, after the company’s full-year results, Mark Brewer, finnCap’s director of research, wrote: “As the only independent supplier at scale of CZT [a semiconductor] for imaging systems, we believe there is substantial strategic value in Kromek that is not reflected in the current price.”
Another London technology analyst, who does not follow the stock, said: “The low end of the Aim market capitalisation spectrum can be a trap in terms of low valuations. The company capitalises a lot of development costs and has been cashflow-negative for the past two years; improving profitability and turning cash-positive will be keys to getting a higher valuation.”
Reflecting on its ten years as a public company, Basu, 50, said: “We have had a difficult time in the market, where the business has grown continuously but the value recognition has declined continuously. When you’re talking to retail investors, it must be very challenging for them to really understand a small, complex business. The relationship we had with private investors was much more interactive.”
He argued that technology businesses that required time and investment to grow were often ignored in favour of short-term successes. “Hardware tech is still rare in the UK. And I think if you’re not in certain segm
Agree 100% with view but there is now incredible value here, the czt manufacturing is the jewel in the crown and I think somebody will buy this part of the company or bid for the whole entity.
Basu is a poor ceo but is a good cto and has created some excellent tech which is now beginning to see commercialisation. The share register is good enough to not allow this to run out of funds or equally do a silly fund raise without demanding a strategic review. In my top 5 for 2024 All imo dyor
Indeed dab808, Basu has consistently claimed a great future for Kromek going back many years. Strange he does not invest his own wealth in the company given the shares are now "available" at 10% of their value when was making claims several years ago. Let us all hope Kromek will fly. More likely we will see flying Pigs.
Yes, dab808. We would all like to see this share fly! Me more than most. I’ve stopped holding my breath as……..
Regarding anything that Basu says, take with a pinch of salt.
This is what he said back in July.
"Kromek is on track to report an underlying profit (adjusted EBITDA) this year to April 2024" Basu added.
So we will see. I'd really like so see this share fly.
Welcome back, Mike33. Once again we have your propaganda on behalf of Kromek. My final thoughts on the Article in the Times: It is people like Basu and companies like Kromek who give the Aim market a dodgy reputation. There are many good companies in the Aim market.. Kromek is probably the worst.
Doing a quick check where the 4 tier one medical imaging OEMs are with thier CZT based Photon counting CT development programs its apparent GE, Siemens and Canon are all steaming ahead and have Prototype scanners in testing at university hospitals and are making very positive claims of their benefits and beliefs that CZT photo counting Scanners married with deep learning AI software will bring and be the new gold standard of CT medical diagnostic imagining.
Canon has units back in Japan now (Redlen CZT) and will be undergoing full testing from Jan 24.
Link below -
https://global.medical.canon/News/PressRelease/Detail/142192-834
Siemens has updated it's web site -
and is presently building a new purpose built CZT manufacturing
Plant in Germany after initially acquiring a Japanese CZT company.
"Quantum Technology® is transforming CT by introducing photon-counting technology into clinical routine. At its core is the QuantaMax® detector, which is equipped with a crystal semiconductor that is substantially different from a standard scintillation detector."
GE is only just slightly ahead of Canon it seems-
"A new prototype GE HealthCare photon counting CT (PCCT) scanner has been installed at 3155 Porter Drive, only the second such scanner in the United States." (California)
So Kromek's new multi year
Development/Supply contact with Philips the 4th listed global tier one OEM will surely advance at pace, they won't and can't afford to lose thier hard fought market share to the competition.
And to deny this revenue steam will have any material impact on Kromek's fortunes seem somewhat absurd to me.
If the article results in a 10% plus rise in the share price, he can give as many interviews as he likes.
Nd
Good point skid. Indeed actually picking what is probably the worst Aim share takes some doing. Basu has been making promises since 2017 on a regular basis. only a fool will believe that one day his promise will come true. Well it is the pantomime season !!!!!!
Iron.
The standard of business and personal finance ‘journalism’ in the times is kindergarten level. Just seems like summer interns.
There is a real story here on how the London market values companies, choosing kmk and basu as poster boys so far off the mark.
I've just read the Times reader's comments and concluded that this must be one of the most loathed stocks in the FTSE Aim All Share. If I were Basu, I think I'd keep a low profile having lost so many investors so much money over the years. I definitely wouldn't crow about turning EBITDA positive. We're not that stupid!
I stopped reading the Times several years ago. No disrespect, but surely readers of that paper are not so dumb as to buy into this snake oil salesmans pitch. Basu and his chums on the BoD do not invest in "their" wonderful company despite the fat salaries they pay themselves. That tells you ALL you need to know.
Anyone got link or text for Times article ?
Revenue and improved margins might be fact. Unfortunately the losses widened to £7.5 million in July . Guess we will see in the interims if this fact has been changed. Would be a first for the company
Timing is important.....The company has turned profitable....and is increasing revenue....2 facts that should see this multibag....The right time to invest is now.....before the crowds arrive....
600 million shares for a company with a market cap of 27 million pounds tells the story of a company with annual dilution for its entire existence. Never having made a profit they coul apply for charitable status, or non profit making organisation. 2 raises and a loan note with the undoubted issuance of more shares to add to the ever frying number of shares. Yet it’s up 10% this morning on no news. The market knows alright. It’s the ordinary shareholder who is left in the dark and penniless.
Funny that at these super bargain levels basu isn't diverting at least half of his very far salary into buying shares on the open market.
I can't believe, after that write up, some buffoons are buying this morning thinking Basu is some sort of tech AIM messiah.
the below is from terminator101 over on advfn.
i see that basu is complaining in the times that the “market dosen’t understand the strategic value of kromek”. when useless directors take to the press to complain about the market it’s worth examining in detail if they have grounds for that complaint. let’s see:
*their last financing “deal” put millions of death spiral finance in place at a high interest rate.
*they have never made a single penny of profit in over a decade.
*directors have barely any skin in the game, the most being 0.7%. hardly backing themselves.
*promise for next year is to be ebitda positive, which means they will make yet another whopping loss.
*two of the directors are creaming more than a quarter of a million in salary every year. that means they have extracted more in salary in a decade than the entire mcap of the company.
strategic value my ****. it’s a crappy aim company run by a bunch of greedy pedestrian scientists, and at £24 million mcap for an enterprise that lost £7 million last year, is massively overvalued. worth at best circa £5 million or less than 1p. it’s a slam dunk short.
Just read this and the attempt at PR knocked by all the comments on his perforrmance.
Basu seems to have been schooled by Bozos Johnson in delusion, self pity and complete lack of self awareness.
Has he been taking lessons from p###o price Andrew or mone?
DYOR and only personal opinion - but suspect many PI's also regret the decision about listing the company!
Article today about Mr Basu's regrets about listing the company.
Had a better relationship with private investors - "very challenging for retail investors to really understand a small, complex business ".
Might encourage more interest in the business?
Nd