Shares in medical and tech business developer Amphion Innovations (LON:AMP) have been lifted this week as it posted 2014 results and chief executive Richard Morgan told Proactive the group had 'transformed' itself from a year ago.
He also said the next growth area for Amphion was likely to be partner company m2m, which is in the medical imaging space, but in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), unlike another Amphion portfolio company Kromek, whose activities include CT scanning.
Amphion's business model is simple. It is invested in seven "partner" companies, which it aims to develop, growing its value at the same time.
"Our next project is to get m2m moving forward more quickly," said Morgan.
This week, Amphion revealed its value had been boosted significantly by the successful float of partner Motif Bio (LON:MFTB) in April this year.
Motif subsequently secured approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to carry out a clinical development programme for iclaprim, an antibiotic designed to be effective against MRSA and multi-drug resistant bacteria, and shares have seen a three-fold increase in value since April’s 20p per share initial public offering (IPO). Today, they are at around 70.3p.
Amphion currently has a 44% shareholding in Motif Bio which (at 60p) is worth £25mln - almost twice Amphion’s own market cap of around £13mln.
Morgan said of the group's development following the Motif float: "We're in a different place than where we were a year ago and even in December."
Morgan also pointed out that partner Kromek had seen a recovery in its share price since the end of the year, which was "good to see" and that together with the Motif stake, in these two alone, the firm had around £35mln of quoted securities.
Taking away from that the overall debt on the balance sheet of around £20mln leaves £15mln of net tradeable assets, he said. "That's 7.5p right there," he said, referring to net asset value (NAV) per share.
In its results statement, Amphion put its adjusted NAV per share at 10p. That exclude the assets and liabilities of DataTern.
Amphion shares are today at 7.125p, and this week have risen around 13%.
On what would be done to develop m2m, Morgan said the firm would aim to do some additive deals, for example taking over some other programmes.
"You don't have to build them a brick at a time over years and years. It’s possible to do additive deals," Morgan explained to Proactive.