Member Info for jupiternmars

http://tinyurl.com/h2zzray Nik Philpot, chief executive of secure payment systems supplier Eckoh plc (LON:ECK), says the firm’s latest contract win is the largest it has signed directly so far in the US, and hails it as an “important deal”. He speaks to Proactive after the firm won a five-year deal with “extremely large” US paediatric clinical care provider Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA). Eckoh will supply CHOA with a version of its CallGuard product which uses its recently UK-patented tokenisation technology, which was launched in May last year, and Philpot says the firm expects to “grow aggressively” in the next few years.

http://tinyurl.com/hfvbe4y Raymond Akers, executive chairman of Akers Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:AKER, LON:AKR) says the company has “paved the way for significant sales of our flagship product both in the US and China” and has “already started to see the results”. The firm announced today that orders for its rapid heparin allergy test total more than US$3mln, with $2.5mln from China, as well as a 70% rise in demand from the US in the first quarter. Akers says, with the expanded order book, that he expects to be cash generative in the second half of this year.

http://tinyurl.com/zu6ucwt Richard Burrell, chief executive of Aggregated Micro Power Holdings PLC (LON:AMPH) talks to Proactive after the firm completed its acquisition of Forest Fuels Holdings, a major UK supplier of woodchips. Terms are £2.82mln cash plus up to 2.5mln shares dependent on performance, and Burrell says “Forest fuels is the first of what we hope will be a number of acquisitions in the sector”. “We will look to infill further acquisitions across the UK both in the provision of wood pellet and wood chip, which will then enable their customers and the wider customer base to benefit,” he says.

http://tinyurl.com/jln9wqr Michael Karg, chief executive of Ebiquity PLC (LON:EBQ), tells Proactive he’s very excited about the long term perspective of marketing analytics, and getting the marketing industry a lot more focussed on data and analytics and data driven decision making. The boss of the marketing analytics specialist says “there’s a lot of buzz amongst our clients about the topic and in the long term I am very, very positive about many, many clients demanding our services.” Key to the growth of the business is expansion geographically and cross selling by encouraging existing customers to utilise Ebiquity’s whole suite of services.

http://tinyurl.com/jgffzuc Philip Houghton, chief executive of Hostel operator Safestay PLC (LON:SSTY), tells Proactive that the company needs to “grow more aggressively” to keep up with the significant demand for its hostels. The company has two hostels in London, where only 4% of the hotels in the city are classed as hostels. “That’s a gross undersupply” Houghton says, adding that “we know there is far more demand than the current hostels can meet, and that’s reflected with the fact we are trading really strongly”.

http://tinyurl.com/zqw4jdd Neil Murray, chief executive officer at drug discovery and development company RedX Pharma PLC (LON:REDX) discusses the £10 million the company raised last week by way of a placing of new shares with Proactive Investors. He says he is pleased with the progress the company's drug portfolio is making and notably the advanced porcupine programme.

http://tinyurl.com/h8ovmmy Neville Upton, chief executive officer at online gaming competition specialist Gfinity PLC (LON:GFIN) discusses interim results for the second half of 2015 with Proactive Investors after revenue tripled over the period. After investing more than a million pounds to upgrade its online platform, which Upton says is 'amazing' , the company is now ready to expand 'dramatically'. Upton says the growth of the eSports market is 'staggering' and that there is not much competition in the space at the moment.

http://tinyurl.com/h2b7e28 Ewan Lloyd-Baker, chief executive at specialist engineering group Hayward Tyler (LON:HAYT) discusses the sale and and leaseback agreement for its site in Peterborough with Proactive Investors. Lloyd-Baker says the property deal will be free up some capital which will be used to repay debt and invest in the business going forward. He sees " a huge amount of opportunity going forward" for the Peter Brotherhood business.

http://tinyurl.com/zot8zjp Raymond Akers, founder and executive chairman of Akers Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:AKER, LON:AKR), says “this is gonna be a great year” after a “blazing start” to 2016. The diagnostic test maker has been granted a US patent for the technology at the heart of a test that detects an allergy to the blood thinning drug Heparin. The patent was just the tip of the iceberg as the group expands its reach. “We now have distribution in 33 countries around the world," says Akers who added the US$2.5mln order it received from China was a “taste of things to come.”

http://tinyurl.com/jqytwyy Charlie Peppiatt, chief executive of electronics firm Stadium Group plc (LON:SDM) says the spate of recent contracts the company has won from “respected players in different spaces” reinforces its strategy. The firm extended its supply partnership with Trak Global, a UK telematics business, winning a manufacturing contract worth around £5mln. Looking ahead to 2016, the CEO says he expects to see continued growth on the top line, and is looking for that to continue down to the company’s earnings.

http://tinyurl.com/h3uye57 e-Therapeutics plc (LON:ETX) is targeting partners to accelerate the development of its drug discovery engine, it told investors on Tuesday. Malcolm Young, chief executive, tells Proactive that “making alliances with much larger companies is absolutely our foreground so that’s where we need to go, that’s where our frontier is, that’s where we need to make the advances.” He adds “commercialisation as a focus in the company has really grown in significance in this last year,” and that the firm is looking for partnerships as a way to recognise the commercial value of both late stage and early stage products.

http://tinyurl.com/j6eztnw Andrew Jacobs, chief executive of Lok’n Store Group Plc (LON:LOK) says self-storage is “a very attractive business” at the moment. Speaking to Proactive, he says that the company is “moving ahead at a very reasonable growth rate”, and that he is “very positive” about the company’s trading. The firm reported robust trading in the first half of its financial year last month, with revenue at its core self-storage business up 5.4% in the half year to end January.

http://tinyurl.com/hpv4x5r Bob Vale, chief executive officer at background checking company ClearStar (LON:CLST), tells Proactive Investors growth in 2015 came from the direct sales division as it unveils preliminary results for 2015. Vale says the company is witnessing a decentralisation of the job market in the US, which it is becoming more aligned with the "shared economy". This should lead to further growth opportunities for the company, he says.

http://tinyurl.com/jqgpheo Ashley Stephenson, chief executive of Corero Network Security PLC (LON:CNS), says the company is “enjoying growth both in the number of orders and the size of the orders” it is receiving. The AIM-listed cyber security company landed a US$700,000 order – its largest in the fast-growing cloud-hosting sector – with an American customer for its SmartWall Threat Defense System, which wards off denial of service attacks (DDoS) in real time. Stephenson adds that the market for the cyber security market is forecast to grow by double digits in the coming years, and that he sees “no end to the threat of DDoS attacks”.

http://tinyurl.com/z4wwgx7 Andrew Newland, chief executive of specialist med-tech company ANGLE plc (LON:AGL), believes the company’s Parsortix liquid biopsy could be a “real game-changer” in the battle against prostate cancer. Data from a Barts Cancer Institute study suggested that the Parsortix system can not only detect the disease, but can also identify how aggressive it is. Although Newland believes Parsortix will need at least 18 months of further research, he says he’s well aware that “there’s a tremendous opportunity here commercially”.

http://tinyurl.com/hjfkjsn Bjarke Larsen chief executive of NetPlay TV PLC (LON:NPT) says the “core business is strong and stable” which helped to drive revenue higher in 2015. For 2015 overall, revenues were £26.3mln, while EBITDA came in at the top end of expectations, around £2.7mln. Momentum has continued into the current year, the gaming group said in its report, with a 26% rise in new players and a 16% rise in active payers in the first three months of 2015. The firm has rewarded shareholders with a special dividend as the number of players taking part in its late-night TV casino games rose sharply.

http://tinyurl.com/zalurt6 Gavin Lavelle, chief executive of Brady Plc (LON:BRY) says he is “delighted” that the firm is still winning contracts despite the downturn in the commodity market. The firm reported a loss of £1.4mln for the year to December 2015, but Lavelle says that the firm has taken “corrective action” in the fourth quarter, taking more than £2mln in costs out of the business. “We will see the benefit of that coming through in the first half of this year, and whilst it’s difficult to call the turn in the commodity markets, our cost base is lower we are being prudent and we are de-risking the business,” he adds, noting that he expects the business to be cash generative in the current financial year.

http://tinyurl.com/hwgm4g2 Peter Shaw, chief executive of DP Poland plc (LON:DPP), says the company is in a “great position” and that he expects the firm to “put its foot on the accelerator with store roll-outs and driving sales”. He speaks to Proactive Investors as the Domino’s Pizza franchise holder for Poland released full year figures for 2015, which showed strong sales growth and an improvement in underlying earnings. Last year marked a step-change in that corporate store EBITDA went to a positive £174,000 compared to a loss of £254,000 the previous year, and Shaw says “we deliver a great service, it’s a great product, and it’s really as a result of our sales and marketing efforts over the last few years.”

http://tinyurl.com/j9zffgh “What the pension market needs and what the public needs is to be able to see consistency so they can plan for the years ahead.” That was Andrew Shepherd’s prognosis of this week’s budget announcement by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne which avoided big changes to pension legislation. Shepherd is the deputy chief executive of wealth manager Brooks Macdonald Group plc (LON:BRK), which consists of six principal companies including retirement planning services. The budget coincided with the company announcing half year results which revealed a 22% rise in pre-tax profit due to across-the-board growth in the company’s asset management, international and funds divisions.

http://tinyurl.com/j256wwd Digital content provider One Media IP Group PLC (LON:OMIP) acquires nostalgic music and television programmes from bands, producers and record labels, and digitises them, making them fit for 21st century consumption. Michael Infante, chairman and CEO of One Media IP, tells Proactive that, like the collapse of the CD, “we are now seeing the collapse of downloading – the iTunes model – in favour of streaming”. He adds that this transition hit figures last year, but remains confident that the company is in a strong position as it was able to maintain its margins.