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It's easy to speculate on **************s and MM holdings here but Steffan and the teams are busy getting on with the day job. The last RNS speaks for itself - business is booming and prospects are excellent. No distractions here, Porta give news when it is relevant. For those with patience, the reward will come this year IMO and increase going forward.

I can smell it............

Lookee, Lookee and DYOR. This looks to be a super little turnaround case as it goes back-to-basics with point-of-care medical diagnostics. All doctors want instant results rather than wait for path lab. Gone are the days when you sent a pregnancy test to the lab its now virtually instant. The same applies to a zillion other tests now following the same ease of use components. Sweet spot for EKF and just why its PoC business attracted two £80m bids last year.

All institutions and shareholders are in at significantly higher prices; most well over 20p Schroders plc 53,070,294 £5,307,029 Cazenove Capital Management Limited 39,233,222 £3,923,322 Oryx International Growth Fund Ltd 32,500,000 £3,250,000 Zwanziger Family Ventures LLC 29,867,120 £2,986,712 Henderson Global Investors 29,550,028 £2,955,003 Legal & General Group Plc (Group) 19,214,079 £1,921,408 Octopus Asset Management Nominees Limited 16,279,022 £1,627,902 Helium Special Situations Fund 5,715,000 £571,500 Bit of a bargain basement time to tuck a few away IMO awaiting next positive announcements.

I think the 500k buy was a marker from a bigger player putting a toe in the water. The critical mass that Porta has achieved by combining its companies under one roof is certainly catching the eye of competitors as the 'integrated approach' to communications catches on. Glencore was the first 'billion dollar big player' to come on board and the result appears to have been excellent as its share price has doubled since the brief in October - I expect more to follow on the back of this. There is a very fine line for institutions between getting on board and missing the boat entirely and I think we are just about to embark; hence the 500k purchase as a first mover steps in. Time will tell but I did coin the phrase 'Steffan Effect' with expectations of the effect that he has already achieved in his short tenure.

Quietly Quietly catchee monkey. Ron Zwanziger is now running EKF. He ran Alere till 2014 and Abbott just bought Alere for $5.8billion. Alere was a point-of-care business. EKF is now a focused point-of-care business having divested its cash-consuming molecular division. Ron is highly pro-active and is forecasting cash-positive from April with escalating business from then on. Ron is a driven major shareholder and EKF is trading at historical lows and at just above NAV. The point of care division received 2 bids last year at £80m but the sale was encumbered by the [now divested] molecular division. Easily worth twice its current MCap on that valuation. Thats why I'm buying into a very accomplished and driven management to turn this around. Quiet buying so as not to arouse the discrepancy between current MCap and value. Julian Baines and Ron have worked well together in the past.

Balanced trading is a good sign of interest in Porta.

Balanced trading is a good sign of interest in Porta.

Surely the 'Steffan Effect' from company contracts like Glencore are not going to stay unnoticed for long. http://www.prweek.com/article/1382024/porta-targets-acquisitions-very-strong-second-half-2015 Note the quote: The appointment of Steffan Williams [in September] has already had a big impact at Newgate with a number of new business wins, including Glencore." The price of Glencore when we got the multi-billion dollar client contract was 70p.......... Its now £1.20 within six months and in an unloved sector. That's pretty good PR Porta.

Optibiotix is exceptional as it does not have to pass through many regulatory hoops at all as its not a pharmaceutical and not subject to MHRA approval. Very much a fast-track to success with microbiome manipulation if you get the right company and OPTI seem to be smack in the right space.

Early stage pharmas have so many hoops to jump through and hurdles to jump over. Stage 2a is still very early and could/probably will take years to bear fruit so don't get too carried away. DYOR and check as it frequently takes funds and disappointments before the cash flows. If the results are exceptional along the way then the big players may part-fund but it is by no means an easy route to success.

People actually seem to be waking up to the embedded value in Porta and its nine constituent companies. Sentiment has been so skeptical and dismissive despite the continual headline growth and director buying. One day soon it will change - 2016 is finally the year that Porta comes of age with a unequalled and combined communications offering.

Dibs - that cynical side of you is showing again :)) - On the appointment of Mike Read last month as chairman: Mike has over 30 years experience in the global Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) sector and has been a director of eight public companies. He has held numerous 'C' level roles in the UK and USA, including, CEO of Pipex Communications, Executive Director at Daisy Group Plc, Non-Executive Director at Nasstar Plc, and Non-Executive Chairman at IntY Ltd. Mike has significant experience helping to build international technology companies, having been involved on over 50 M&A transactions. And his quote on joining - "I am very much looking forward to working with John and the Falanx Group team. This is a vibrant and ambitious company operating in the extremely exciting cyber security industry. Having enjoyed a long and successful career, I recognised a great opportunity to return to pro-active management and assist in the growth of Falanx Group." I still ask - Why would a guy of this caliber with an impeccable reputation in the field come on Board knowing that his first task is a fundraise - Not! It would be the biggest faux-pas in his career and not the pothole a seasoned exec would fall into.

Excellent 'front-window' for Publicasity - the show-reel is top rate to integrate with other Porta teams. http://publicasity.co.uk/

I've got to agree with the need for the patience of Job but I can see it all coming together this year. David Wright wanted to build a £50m multi-faceted communications company and I think we will get there this year, albeit two years later than planned. Professional services can only grow strongly by acquisition and start-up extension as we have done. Organic growth is kicking in strongly now - look at Newgate Australia; it was a £1m start-uo in August 2013 and is now seen as market leader for corporate, financial and PR under one umbrella. It is this integrated approach that is the usp for Porta. DW waited a year to get PPS and Publicasity at the 'right price' in 2014 and that set Porta back by the same length of time. Last year was one of integration and building critical mass. We had the head office in the right place at the heart of London's financial centre and set about centralising all services under one roof. A shrewd move was to take 30% of Capital Access in exchange for co-location in the same building. Next came the rationalisation of pruning; one department in the UK and two none performing offices in Europe to concentrate of the strong performers. All directors have bought in strongly on the back of this. The next stage was to bring in a vibrant, experienced and proactive MD to work within a seasoned Board - enter Steffan Williams. He immediately picked up Glencore as a multi-billion pound client in October last year and is now streamlining operations and targeting bigger clients. A significant amount of Porta income is recurring in nature so the challenge is to step-change the impressive growth seen since inception. We are in the sweet space of being able to provide a companies with a totally integrated approach to Financial, Communications, Digital and PR all under one roof. That is a huge leap forward for clients wanting to control overheads by bringing three separate business requirements under one umbrella. Porta get a 'feel' for their client in all areas of their business and can therefore provide a tailored offering at significantly reduced overall cost. It really is the only way to go given the current financial climate when client, customer and investor relations need to be a major priority for all businesses. Porta can provide the totally integrated approach - that is what excites Steffan about future prospects here.

and we still have a seller wanting to rebalance their portfolio! At least it explains this mornings weakness after such a lot of nice buys going through in the last week or two. Lets hope that's finally cleared an overhang and we can start concentrating on contracts currently being signed. Porta's integrated communications approach is right at the front of the pack - giving clients the multiple offerings they require from a single company. Once people start picking up on the Steffan effect sentiment will change - just a matter of time. 2016 is off to a cracking start.

You have to give JB H1 this year to demonstrate the traction he's getting in cyber. Falanx Cyber was only set up two years ago to satisfy client demand. It has added operational capacity, increased credibility, depth and certification over the past year. We know contracts have been signed off that, through confidentiality, were not RNS'd. Extract from the interims - Five new corporate intelligence contracts signed and post period highlights " New contract wins with several UK Government departments and corporate customers". Tom Winnifrith specifically tied him down on any possible cash call which he said would not be needed, so we must be confident of at least break-even this year. We know Falanx is pending contracts with three European regulated financial services companies as 'preferred supplier'. Plus ongoing HMG departmental roll-out. Given that shrewd is an ability to accurately assess situations, then he is either shrewd or barking up the wrong tree. In the current climate, I think he will prove to be the former by the end of H1.

Porta's twitter page has taken off from a standing start recently - lots more info and tweets from a previously underused resource. Seem to be firing on all cylinders in this fast growing integrated PR approach. https://twitter.com/Portacomms

The start of the year is when most budgets are set for 2016 so I expect Porta will be very busy. Add in the 'Steffan effect' in chasing bigger contracts and a renewed focus and it should be developing into a good Q1 followed by an excellent Q2 this year. The effect at Newgate is tangible given the volume of Newgate tweets during the Boris Johnson conference on Monday. We've got a nice balance business offering here in the UK now and all centred in the business district of London - time to show our mettle and pull in the fees.

ne. At a recent GP Commissioning Conference, Practice Manager Jose Tarnowski explained that a day’s admission to an acute hospital costs the same as a whole year’s care by a GP practice. It is therefore unsurprising that Sir David Nicholson, the Chief Executive of the NHS, stated at the same conference that for ‘the new NHS’ the emphasis will be on caring for patients in their own homes wherever possible. That has been a desirable goal for a long time, but now it will be crucial to managing the shrinking NHS budget with the increasing demands set to be made of it. This is why ensuring compliance can become the keystone to making ‘the new NHS’ work – by helping patients stay at home and saving the NHS the huge extra cost of hospital care – as well as ensuring providers are paid. There is a real opportunity for compliance to move from an expensive problem to the key to the solution of the NHS budget puzzle. But only if technologies like those spearheaded by Protomed are adopted quickly and widely enough. A case in point is Britain’s estimated 614,000 dementia sufferers, for whom complying with doctors’ orders is a greater challenge than for most of us. While in-home care is understandably a priority for NHS reforms for financial reasons, taking dementia sufferers away from a hospital or caring environment – where medication can be administered and monitored – dramatically increases the risk and cost of non-adherence. So what challenges do they face in complying with medicine regimes at home, and how can we overcome them cost-effectively? BioDose