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Medicsight, Synchronica and Plant Impact to present on 15 January 2009

by Ian Mclelland

We begin our 2009 investor forum season with three interesting technology focused companies.  Medicsight, Plant Impact and Sychroncia are three very different tech companies, but they share one common characteristic - huge growth potential in 2009.

Stock markets are now looking ahead, and while there are undeniably concerns about the health of the major western economies, there is a growing consensus that by the second half of 2009, we may witness the beginning of a recovery.  That offers private and professional investors, who have spent a good part of 2008 on the sidelines, potentially some very good opportunities to snap up companies on undemanding valuations ahead of an anticipated recovery.   Recent data from Capita Registrars highlighted that private investors are beginning to buy back into the markets, with net inflows from retail investors recorded in October and November of 2008.

If our own experiences are anything to go by, private and professional investors are certainly still around. Our last event of 2008, with Cluff Gold, Minera IRL and Lydian International generated substantial interest from the investment community - all three companies received a boost in their share price and/or traded volume in the following days.

We certainly see no decrease in interest from companies wishing to present at our forums either. Our first three forums of 2009 are already fully booked, and we have only limited availability remaining on any date in the first half of 2009. Demand is so strong that we are planning to commence investor forums in Birmingham and Manchester later this year.

The following companies have already confirmed they will be presenting between January and June 2009:  Regal Petroleum, Cambridge Mineral Resources, EMED Mining, Go Industry, Seeing Machines, Kootenay Gold, Gold Resource Corp, Gulf Keystone Petroleum, Central China Goldfields, Strategic Natural Resources, IPSA, Landore Resources, Green Dragon Gas, Gemfields, Kopane Diamonds, Victoria Oil & Gas and FTSE 250 constituent Dragon Oil.  

Our investor forums are to be hosted on the following dates:  January 15, January 29, February 12, February 26, March 11, March 26, April 7, April 22, May 14, and June 4.  

Our first forum, on January 15 at the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel (Register Here), will be hosted by Plant Impact, Synchronica and Medicsight.   All three companies chalked up considerable milestones in 2008 and are looking forward to further progress in 2009. 

A short description on each is below, and we look forward to seeing you on the 15th.

Medicsight (LSE: MSHT) is a London-based developer of computer-aided detection (CAD) and image analysis software for the medical imaging market. The company specialises in helping radiologists to identify, measure and analyse disease and early indicators of disease.

Founded in 1999, it has taken Medicsight the best part of a decade to launch its first products.
With the company’s focus being on colorectal and lung cancer, it is Medicsight’s ColonCAD and MedicRead Colon products that are expected to drive revenues over the next few years.

As Medicsight’s colon-related software continues to gain regulatory approval in key territories, sales are forecast to increase to approximately £24 million in 2009 (when the company is expected to become profitable) and £34 million in 2010.

Plant Impact (AIM: PIM), based in Preston, was formed in 2003 and joined AIM in October 2006. It specialises in natural products designed to improve the health of crops, making them more resistant to climate change, adverse soil conditions and pests. This results in better crop yields and a longer shelf life, which of course boosts the profits of food suppliers.

Plant Impact is coming to the end of its research and development phase. It has around 200 ongoing field trials in more than 30 countries, primarily sponsored by third parties many of whom approached Plant Impact in the first instance.

Although some trials have been conducted on arable crops such as soy bean, the majority have been on higher value items such as fruits and flowers. Tests have been conducted on tomatoes, lettuce, table grapes, strawberries, blackberries, apples, pears, cocoa, squash, roses and cucumbers for example.

Many of these trials have produced impressive results with one on cocoa improving yields by 69% and another on lettuces improving yields by 15%, shelf life by 7 days and dramatically reducing fertiliser input.

Plant Impact uses six main technologies, sometimes in combination with each other, to create its various different products. Manufacturing is outsourced to two UK-based firms.

Synchronica (AIM: SYNC) has, over the last three years, streamlined its business model to become a true mobile software company by concentrating on two software products for mobile phones.

Synchronica´s flagship product is a mobile email and synchronization solution, Mobile Gateway. Although it works with most types of mobile phones, its key selling point is that it allows ordinary mass-market feature phones to send and receive emails plus manage calendars and contact lists.

Normally this sort of functionality is confined to Smartphones such as Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices. Mobile Gateway provides Blackberry-like services on a wide range of devices from all leading manufacturers and supports about 1.5 billion devices in the market today. Unlike other solutions, it requires no additional software to be installed on the handset. Instead it uses industry standards to synchronise with built-in applications, enabling it to address a much larger market than competing solutions.

Synchronica has announced a number of contract wins in recent months, and investors have started to take notice, pushing the stock from a 2008 low of 2.5 pence back to 4 pence.

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