I’ve been looking around for recovery plays and I think I may have found three little companies that could be set to start shining again…
It appears that Idox (IDOX) had a good first quarter. It reported new customer
wins in its “core government market place”. Idox sells software into local authority planning departments, as well as Electronic Document Record Management
Systems. The public sector is a notoriously slow adopter of new technology, but it is now under pressure from central government to get online.
Idox dumped its chief executive after a profit warning last year but now appear to be back on track. Current year earnings are forecast to be 0.9p, which leaves the stock trading on a current-year prospective multiple of 9.2 times. Should this forecast be met, then this is hardly demanding.
I have also been casting my eye over BSG Clearing Solutions, a subsidiary of Billing Services Group (BILL). The company has announced a multi-year renewal agreement with Hong Kong CSL and a new contract with New World Mobility to deliver international roaming data and financial clearing services. Hong Kong CSL purchased New World Mobility in April 2006 and chose to migrate New World Mobility's clearing requirements to BSG from an incumbent supplier.
Under the agreement, BSG will manage data and financial clearing and settlement
for the company's combined 339 international roaming partners, which cover 256
countries. BSG will determine operators' net cash positions and transact the foreign exchange of funds across various currencies.
BSG Clearing Solutions is a global provider of clearing and settlement, payment services, and financial risk management solutions for communications service providers. The company processes over 20 billion transactions annually for 750 of the world's largest communications companies throughout North America, Europe and Asia.
With a ubiquitous, scalable platform and an extensive portfolio of clearinghouse services for fixed-line, wireless, Wi-Fi, and broadband networks, BSG monetizes network transactions by facilitating the financial exchange of its customers' services. BSG meets the needs of today's complex network interconnections and anticipates the requirements of converging technologies, allowing for rapid and reliable deployment.
Finally, there’s Mediwatch (MDW), which has received approval for its PSAwatchTM product, a quantitative point-of-care diagnostic test for prostate disease. This will enable it to sell the product in Europe.
Mediwatch's new PSAwatchTM test and the portable Bioscan reader system will be one of the first low-cost, quantitative, portable, point-of-care PSA (prostate-specific antigen) assay systems. PSA is a blood test used routinely for diagnosis and surveillance of diseases of the prostate, which are some of the most common problems encountered by clinicians in adult urological practice. Approximately 40 million PSA tests are done worldwide, annually. PSAwatchTM measures PSA from a finger-prick sample of blood, in just 10 minutes.
This will enable on the spot tests for possible prostate cancer, whereas men typically have to wait for days or even weeks for results as a blood sample must be sent to a hospital laboratory.
Commenting on the CE approval, Philip Stimpson, Chief Executive, Mediwatch said:
'This is an exceptional achievement for Mediwatch. We believe we are the only
company with a completely integrated diagnostic platform for prostate disease.
PSAwatchTM is the last piece of the jigsaw which completes our One-Stop
Diagnostic System.'
Until next time,
Melissa Carroll
for The Penny Sleuth
