Potential trickle (though not cheap...)
LONDON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Genetix Group Plc, a British supplier of robotic gene research equipment, said on Sunday it aimed to float on the London Stock Exchange via a placing of shares for some 30 million pounds ($43.43 million).
The offering is expected value the company -- which is enjoying rapidly rising sales on the back of a world-wide boom in genomics research -- at more than 100 million pounds.
Approximately 20 million of the money raised will go to the company with 10 million for selling shareholders, including founder and 83-percent shareholder, Mark Reid.
Genetix, based in New Milton, southern England, was founded in 1991 and has been profitable since 1992.
WestLB Panmure is sponsoring the flotation which is scheduled to hit the market around the end of the month.
Reid had the idea of building the specialist equipment firm after buying a small plastics company in 1984. He started by developing a plastic analysis plate with 384 wells -- now the industry standard -- and has gone on the develop a series of machines which sell for up to 110,000 pounds.
Genetix has 150 customers for its instruments, including British drug giants Glaxo Wellcome (LSE: GLXO.L - news) and AstraZeneca , U.S. genomics leader Celera Genomics , and Germany's Max Planck Institute.
Its high-throughput equipment is typically used to analyse DNA samples before processing in gene sequencing machines.
Genetix also has a growing contract research business and has just moved into the supply of reagents with the acquisition of Brighton-based Genpak for 6.5 million pounds.
Turnover in the six months to June 30 was 5.36 million pounds and after tax profit 1.53 million.
The business is currently generating an operating margin of around 40 percent but this is likely to fall to around 25 percent next year as investment rises, before trending up again in 2002.
Genetix's main competitor is U.S. based Genomic Solutions which listed on Nasdaq in May. .. |
