The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
Good read.
https://twitter.com/Weardalelithium/status/1678345795861458945?t=aIAORuTPI6kSfJxfp2XimA&s=19
Marechale Capital plc
("Marechale" or the "Company")
Investment Update
The Directors of Marechale Capital plc (AIM: MAC) are pleased to note the
announcements by Burgh Island Hotel ("Burgh Island") and Weardale Lithium
Limited ("Weardale"), companies in which it holds investments.
In 2018, Marechale acted as adviser on the acquisition of Burgh Island. The
Company notes that, on 10 May 2023, Burgh Island announced its proposed sale.
In the event that its sale concludes, the Directors of Marechale anticipate
there will likely be an opportunity to realise its investment. Marechale holds
an interest in 4.9 per cent. of the equity of Burgh Island and the quantum of
any realisation will depend on the completion terms of the sale. The Company
will provide a further update to the market in the event of the completion of
the sale.
Further, the Company also notes the announcement by Weardale on 11 May 2023
advising that Weardale, a lithium exploration and development business based in
the Weardale Valley, County Durham in the north of England, has successfully
extracted lithium carbonate from geothermal brines and that these positive
tests results are amenable for lithium production. Weardale further states
that it now intends to accelerate and scale-up of its testing of increased
volumes of lithium carbonate towards demonstrating commercial scale production.
The Directors of Marechale are pleased to note the positive developments at
Weardale, a company in which it holds an 8.5 per cent. interest.
When the Company's half-yearly results were reported on the 2 December 2022,
the Company's balance sheet showed net assets of approximately £3.48 million,
representing approximately 3.6 pence of value per share in issue.
Among the companies in dispute with the government is Omega Diagnostics, which has been based in Alva, Clackmannanshire, since it was founded in 1987. In March, the company was forced into a firesale of its loss-making manufacturing site in Alva and its diagnostics business to a subsidiary of Orient Gene — one of the main Chinese suppliers of lateral flow tests to the government — to prevent the company’s collapse after a deal with the government fell over. The £1 million sale saved 93 jobs and diagnostics manufacturing at the site, but the outcome was bittersweet for Omega.
The company had instead been confident of growing the business by manufacturing Covid lateral flow tests at the site under a potentially transformative government contract.
Omega had used a £2.5 million pre-payment under a contract with the Department of Health and Social Care, alongside £11 million it raised from investors in June 2020, to increase manufacturing capacity and the workforce from 60 to about 200, ahead of the government licensing a test for Omega to make. Government-funded equipment was also installed in preparation.
Instead, the contract expired in October last year without the government licensing a third-party test to Omega. Its costs to support the anticipated manufacturing, meanwhile, had “substantially” increased.
Announcing plans to sell Alva in February, Jag Grewal, Omega’s chief executive and treasurer of the British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, the industry trade body, said it was “hugely disappointing that having acted in good faith to establish UK manufacturing for government-issued Covid tests, we find that these tests are, in the main, sourced from China instead”.
Further damaging relations and Omega’s prospects, the department is pursuing repayment of the £2.5 million funding, which Omega is disputing. The company has launched a “substantial” counterclaim, pursuing an additional £1 million-plus for losses under the contract.
In August Omega also sold to Orient Gene, for £6.1 million, its loss-making business that makes and supplies lateral flow tests to detect CD4 levels in blood, a measure used in HIV treatment to determine whether a patient needs to be prescribed antivirals. The tests were also made at Alva.
The sale means Omega has exited the diagnostics market and its workforce has reduced from about 350 to 70. The remaining company is now focused on its health and nutrition business in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Shares in Omega have slumped from more than 90p at about the time the government announced the contract in March 2021 to 3½p last week, valuing the company at just £7.8 million.
Omega has also been caught up in a separate legal dispute between the government and Abingdon Health, another Aim-quoted testing company, based in York. Omega was lined up to help manufacture a Covid antibody test on behalf of Abingdon at Alva as part of the government’s rapid test consortium, formed in April 2020, but Abingdon strug
During the early part of the Covid crisis the government called on business “to build a British diagnostics industry at scale”.
In the spring of 2020 Britain was scrambling to put together its emergency response, with concerns about the country’s capacity to quickly diagnose coronavirus cases.
Less than three years on, the ambition has descended into multimillion-pound legal contract disputes with UK testing companies, redundancies and bitter recriminations.
The breakdown in relations between government and business has led industry to talk privately of betrayal and question whether companies would be as willing to respond to a “call to arms” when the next crisis arrives.
The acrimony has also renewed questions about Britain’s preparedness for the next emergency. Last week Dame Kate Bingham, who has been lauded for securing vaccines as head of the government’s vaccine taskforce, accused ministers of dismantling the country’s vaccine capability.
The government is locked in legal disputes with three small-cap London-listed diagnostic companies over testing contracts, which has hit shareholders, balance sheets, investment and employment and, some insiders believe, damaged the industry’s international competitiveness.
The government insists it put British innovation at the forefront of its response, such as through its partnership with SureScreen Diagnostics, but also prioritised value for taxpayer money and ensured all tests went through a rigorous evaluation.
Hasn't helped being slated by Tom W in his rag today.
Are these clowns having a laugh. Haven't as many shares as others (100k), but I voted a resounding no earlier this week.
Oke / Comp - great posts.
Insert "*************"
Hard listening but some interesting snippets.
https://www.*************.com/views/60665/a-free-to-access-podcast-from-tom-winnifrith-for-shareholders-in-omega-diagnostics
Good post. Agree entirely
Who on earth is the bishop? Bashing the bishop more like.
See our Chinese friends got another small bonus
https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/001383-2022?
https://twitter.com/SimonHa56798569/status/1481975818251386890?t=lvDD4GNEmS6rVG-aydJRKg&s=19
Apologies - double post. Phone typing issue not purposely derampimg
Sh1 teprofits article yesterday. Explains the influx of ****roaches. Behind a paywall so only can see the headlines.
"Omega Diagnostics – how close to tits up? Placing process surely now underway - Why not ‘fess up?
You do not need the brains of, the amazing, Rachel Riley to work out that Omega Diagnostics (ODX) needs to do a placing PDQ or it is in serious danger of going tits up, But for those Bulletin Board Morons who, having the brains of a park bench, are in denial here are the maths:"
Sh1 teprofits article yesterday. Explains the influx of
new ****roaches. Behind a paywall so can only see the advert:
"Omega Diagnostics – how close to tits up? Placing process surely now underway - Why not ‘fess up?
You do not need the brains of, the amazing, Rachel Riley to work out that Omega Diagnostics (ODX) needs to do a placing PDQ or it is in serious danger of going tits up, But for those Bulletin Board Morons who, having the brains of a park bench, are in denial here are the maths"
Next carpet bombing of Chinese **** LFT's incoming
hTTps://twitter.com/downunderfutbol/status/1478723901320581127/photo/1
TW. So what do you suggest? Do nothing and cry about it. I'd rather go down fighting.