Commercialisation firm NetScientific will delist from Aim to free up cash for its portfolio companies, having failed to attract concrete offers after putting itself up for an acquisition.
UK-based commercialisation firm NetScientific is to delist from the Aim stock exchange in a bid to pare back its operational costs and protect its remaining cash availability.
The decision comes after a strategic review that concluded NetScientific’s cost obligations must be “significantly” reduced to free up more capital for investing into its portfolio companies.
NetScientific believes there is “limited” market appetite for listed intellectual property businesses. It also plans to weigh the funding requirements of each of its portfolio investments against the short-term prospects of realising value generation for its shareholders.
The firm, which focuses on health technologies including therapeutics, diagnostics and digital applications, originally envisaged an acquisition as an option going forward, however concrete interest has failed to materialise.
NetScientific’s cash resources of $4.2m as at December 31 2018 contrasts with projected central costs of $2.6m per year, plus up to $6.4m committed to portfolio companies in each of 2019 and 2020, unless they can externally raise funding.
The company’s portfolio includes Glycotest, a liver disease diagnostics spinout of Baruch S. Blumberg Institute and Drexel University that has secured $3m of an up to $10m commitment from drug firm Fosun Pharma.
