Ryan Mee, CEO of Fulcrum Metals, reviews FY23 and progress on the Gold Tailings Hub in Canada. Watch the video here.
From today's Times:
Inspiration Healthcare’s share price chart would bring doctors running if it flashed up on monitors in the hospitals where its intensive care products are used. From 68p in 2020, the firm, which specialises in neonatal medical machines and aids, saw its stock more than double in the following 12 months before crashing back down to 84p over distribution issues in China last November and halving again to 45p now.
It’s either an ideal time to snap up a bargain in this Crawley-based medtech distributor — or it’s a dud that was overvalued in the Covid years, when its ventilators saw high demand from the NHS. Which is correct?
Inspiration was founded in 2003, and listed on Aim in 2015 via a reverse takeover of Inditherm, which specialises in technology that warms up very sick patients. Today, Inspiration’s key products include the all-in-one SLE6000 ventilator, non-invasive ventilators for babies and cerebral function monitoring systems; the firm sells its own UK-made products in 75 countries, generating 60 per cent of profits from overseas. Its neonatal market specialism is seeing growing demand: more than 15 million babies are born prematurely every year, but that figure is rising worldwide. The neonatal intensive care market is worth $6.8 billion and set to approach $10 billion by 2027, according to analysts ResearchandMarkets.com.
Yet Inspiration’s own trends have not reflected that opportunity. Results for the year to February were muted, with revenues almost flat at £41 million and underlying earnings falling from £6 million a year earlier to £4 million. Chief executive Neil Campbell said the firm had shown “resilience”, a barrel-scraper of a verdict.
There are reasons for cheer: Inspiration invested in a new manufacturing and technology centre in Croydon, increasing both its capacity and capability. It has reliable, high-quality customers, and revenues picked up in the fourth quarter of its last financial year, and amounted to almost £2 million cash in the first two months of its 2024 year. Its policy of investing about 9per cent of sales into R&D should gradually pay off.
Seb Jantet, analyst at house broker Liberum, is realistic: “the recent track record and poor cash generation warrant some caution,” he says, but names a punchy 100p target price because “Inspiration’s core offering is sound and … we expect the discount to peers to close.”
The price to earnings ratio is 9.6 for 2023, down from over 12 last year. Inspiration is a dicey investment, but its medical technology’s time has come: buy.
An Aim-listed drugs company has received US marketing approval for its erectile dysfunction treatment, sending shares sharply higher.
Futura Medical said the US Food and Drug Administration had authorised the sale of Eroxon gel over the counter. The firm said it could be marketed as the first topical treatment for the problem without the need for a prescription.
Shares in Futura Medical closed up 12.4 per cent at 48¼p, valuing the company at £124 million on the London Stock Exchange’s junior market.
The authorisation came after regulators asked for more information from the company, which submitted its application in October. Eroxon has previously received marketing approval in Europe and the Middle East and was launched in the UK in April through a distribution partner.
It is marketed as a clinically proven treatment that “helps you get an erection within ten minutes” compared with oral medications such as Viagra, which Futura said require a doctor’s prescription in America and “typically are required to be taken at least 30 minutes in advance”.
Futura Medical was founded in 2001 and is based in Guildford. Its chairman is John Clarke, 74, a former president of GSK’s consumer healthcare business.
James Barder, 63, Futura Medical’s chief executive, said US marketing approval was a “huge milestone” following the submission of 22 clinical studies and performance bench tests to the regulator. “The FDA set a very high standard in evaluating the effectiveness and safety,” he said, adding that the “approval is a major de-risking event for the company and we look forward to updating shareholders on our US commercialisation plans”.
Analysts at Liberum, which is Futura Medical’s nominated adviser, have said that Eroxon “has the potential to become a global name”.
Liberum said yesterday that the product could “take a significant market share” in America and increased its target price for the company from 121p to 142p, adding: “The next catalyst will be June’s capital markets day and Futura announcing a US market partner, hopefully before the end of 2023.”
Futura Medical said in its full-year results in April that its “cash runway” extends beyond the initial launches expected over the next year and that it had cash resources of £4 million.
Following the FDA authorisation, £4.4 million of warrants were subscribed for, extending the company’s cash visibility to 2025.
Futura Medical had made a net loss of £5.9 million in the year to the end of December, of which £4.1 million related to research and development.
Liberum has updated its target price for Futura Medical PLC (AIM:FUM, OTC:FAMDF) shares from 121p to 142p after the latter's announcement of US Food & Drug Administration approval for MED3000, a treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED), according to the corporate broker's research note.
This development marks a significant milestone for Futura, further strengthening the investment case in the Liberum's view.
The groundbreaking approval places MED3000 as the first over-the-counter (OTC) ED treatment to be approved in the US.
Compared with existing prescription-based treatments such as Viagra and Cialis, MED3000 offers easier accessibility and faster onset of effect.
Consequently, this could help Futura carve out a substantial market share in the US, the world's largest market for ED treatments, Liberum noted.
The next significant step for Futura, according to the broker, is to secure a US marketing partner, ideally before the end of fiscal year 2023.
This move is anticipated to leverage the partner's experience in building an OTC brand and make a significant impact in the market.
Futura is set to hold a capital markets day (CMD) on June 22, where further details about the launch and the progress of Eroxon (Futura's consumer brand for MED3000) in European markets are expected.
Liberum's financial forecasts do not yet include revenue from the company's launched markets, as it awaits more clarity on the timing and quantum of stocking orders.
Despite ending 2022 with £4m cash and expecting a £1m tax credit refund in mid-2023, Liberum does not view Futura's cash outflow as a significant concern. It believes that Futura is well-funded and does not foresee the need for equity raises in the near future.
Africa Day is celebrated on May 25 every year to mark the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.
From the outset it was hardly African because the lighter skinned Arab world north of the Sub-Sahara nations considered themselves scarcely African. And it was never really united either.
The same applies to its successor, the African Union (AU). Both bodies were meant to fight colonialism, bind countries together in free-trade partnerships, mediate in a plethora of wars and disputes and protect the continent’s environment and natural resources. Success was achieved in very few of these goals. The lure of money, corruption and the decimation of unique African wildlife by poaching syndicates – using impoverished local peasants to do the dirty work – went on unchecked.
Zimbabwe, which produced 1 200 metric tonnes of the mineral in 2021 is the world’s sixth largest producer.
In a document titled 2021 White Paper on China Lithium Battery Industry Development Index, the China Centre for Information Industry Development (CCID) indicated that the Asian country’s “lithium battery industry reached 324GWh, four times that of 2017”.
Housed under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, CCID further highlighted that the Asian economic powerhouse for the past five consecutive years since 2017, has been the world’s top consumer of lithium.
This could, possibly, focus positive attention on Premier's operation:
https://www.theindependent.co.zw/local-news/article/200011442/rampant-looting-in-army-lithium-project-unearthed-military-hardware-producer-directed-to-halt-exports
https://www.***************************/tirupati-graphite-fy23-gross-profit-increased-170-to-1372048/4121118126?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=new-plc
Here we go, Luckybob23: https://www.investing.com/equities/imaginatik-plc
From earlier this year:
Kefi Gold and Copper [LON:KEFI], formerly known as Kefi Minerals, the gold and copper mining and exploration company with operations in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, has seen its share price gradually creep upwards over the last six months.
Although its early days, Kefi has offered a 17.4% return year-to-date and a 13% return over one year.
The company is still a loss-maker, reporting an increased GBP2.9m loss in its last results to 30th June 2022, up from a GBP2.2m loss for the corresponding period in 2021, but is approaching 2023 with a more confident outlook.
The company’s executive chairman, Harry Anagnostaras-Adams said at the time: “The improvement in the local working environment in both Ethiopia (security) and Saudi Arabia (regulatory) since late 2021 has allowed KEFI to make rapid progress during the period in both jurisdictions. Kefi is now better positioned than it has ever been with the improvement in the local working environment in both Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia allowing us to focus on our goals.”
Might 2023 be the year that long-suffering shareholders in Kefi have cause to celebrate?
https://www.thearmchairtrader.com/kefi-gold-and-copper-could-be-turning-a-corner-in-2023/
Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LSE:RR.)’s engine flying hours could outdo expectations this year as global aviation hones in on pre-pandemic levels, according to UBS analysts.
First quarter flight times of Rolls-Royce powered planes, which determine how much the FTSE 100-listed aerospace firm is paid by airlines, could top 2.8mln hours, UBS said in a note.
This could plot Rolls-Royce on course to outdo UBS’ initially anticipated 13mln hours of flying in 2023, the bank forecast, though the figure would still sit at just 85% of 2019 times.
Looking ahead to Rolls-Royce’s next trading update on Thursday, 11 May, UBS anticipated no major announcements would be made.
“We expect guidance to be reiterated and no meaningful updates on the strategic review,” UBS noted, repeating a ‘buy’ rating and share price target of 200p for Rolls-Royce, up 29% on Friday’s opening price.
Rolls-Royce forecast operating profit to sit between £0.8bn and £1bn come the end of 2023, up from £0.7 last year, alongside free cash flow in the region of £0.6bn to £0.8bn, compared to 2022’s £0.5bn.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1012933/rolls-royce-flying-hours-could-exceed-expectations-ubs-1012933.html
... funds could be interested in THG, says Lex in the Financial Times. Its “straitened circumstances”, including “four profit warnings in the space of a year”, don’t detract from the fact that the group “trades at an eye-popping discount to the sum of its parts”.
Broker Liberium believes that even if you apply an “undemanding” valuation of one times forward sales, THG’s “highly rated skincare brands and well-trodden online platforms” might alone be worth £1.4bn.
Health brands such as Myprotein and Myvegan may be worth another £1.8bn.
Add in another £500m for its e-commerce technology and the enterprise value would jump to £3.7bn, double Monday’s figure.
Welcome news:
European pharmaceutical company offers its investigational medicinal product to a wide range of specialist medical practitioners in the United Kingdom
Epidiolex's Success Highlights Potential for MGC Pharma's CannEpil®
The recent success of Epidiolex, a CBD-based epilepsy treatment that generated $296 million in sales in 2019, highlights the potential for MGC Pharma's CannEpil® in the UK market. This underlines the potential of CannEpil®, an investigational medicinal product for patients suffering from refractory epilepsy, to make a significant impact in the UK market.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mgc-pharmas-cannepil-now-accessible-060000251.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADm4Mwm_WoC548JKadPkCk0ChtSbnisGYmYJ3-YZVXNZ9R3WOrukywIzNztLhI_9t3kbtV9DN_gPiRWlHq3gWC_ahJZsIf2lN4_IBXwAAVtUb5J4PPu0flOxGJ5ezgPKGylgpVTxv167rEkZvL-gFaXLUV4ij2ParyBmla4ZUQ_X
Europe’s transition to electric cars is under threat because of persisting shortages of lithium, the key battery component that will power the vehicles of the future.
EU plans to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 mean demand for lithium is set to surge fivefold by 2030 to 550,000 tonnes per year — more than double the 200,000 tonnes the region will be able to produce, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
“The whole global market is still set to be in a deficit by the end of the decade,” said Daisy Jennings-Gray, analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
“Europe will probably sit in a tight position in terms of availability and cannot afford any delays to domestic projects [to extract the metal].”
The supply problem has been highlighted by the world’s largest lithium producer Albemarle, which has sidelined plans to extract lithium in Europe after failing to find a commercially viable site.
“The resources we are aware of in Europe are not high quality and relatively small,” the group’s chief financial officer Scott Tozier told the Financial Times.