Small Cap Awards 2024: Aquis Company Of The Year Nominees

Inaugurated in 2013, the Small Cap Awards is an annual event celebrating and rewarding the finest in the sub-£350m market cap quoted company sector.

The Awards celebrates those professionals and companies that work within the AIM and Aquis communities and is attended by listed companies, institutions, fund managers, brokers and advisors.

The 2024 Awards will take place on Thursday 13th June 2024 at One Moorgate Place in London.

The nominees for Aquis Company of the Year are:

Equipmake

Equipmake is a UK-based technology led engineering specialist pioneering the development and production of industry-leading electrification products and solutions for the global automotive, aerospace, bus, coach and off-highway industries. The Company successfully listed on the Aquis Exchange in July 2022, raising £10.5 million. Since then, the Company has gone on to raise over £10 million from new and existing investors to help to accelerate growth.

Equipmake is leading the transition within the engineering and transport sector from conventional fossil-fuelled to zero-emission powertrains. Equipmake has also developed a reputation as a leader in the design and production of ultra-high-performance electric motors, inverters, Electric Vehicle (EV) drivetrains and control systems.

Equipmake anticipated the demand in EVs in the early 2000s and predicted the shift towards hybrid powertrains before many competitors. Equipmake was therefore an early leader of the electrification process and has pioneered the development of electric products and solutions since then.

Leading this dynamic and innovative company is Founder and CEO Ian Foley. An engineer by training, Ian is highly experienced in the global motorsports industry, including working for Le Mans and Formula 1. Ian has built a strong team to make his vision of Equipmake a reality. Recent appointments include COO, CFO and Business Development leaders to help drive the continued rapid expansion of the business.

Since formation in 2001, the company has built a reputation for engineering excellence, with a highly skilled engineering team and many people years of know-how accumulated. The Company operates from state-of-the-art facilities in the UK.

Driven by the global movement towards electrification and sustainability, there is a rapidly increasing demand for the comprehensive range of electrification products and solutions that Equipmake offer. The Company is making meaningful inroads across a number of sectors includingthe repowering of buses, for example the recent all-electric repowering of a new Routemaster bus which is now in service and an agreement with First Bus to upgrade its fleet. 

As well as this sector, Equipmake is continuing to expand its offerings, including high-performance vehicles, heavy duty equipment, aircraft and even space.

Equipmake is on an aggressive expansionary track, progressively building its pipeline and sales wins, investing to increase and accelerate delivery, which translating into strong growth in revenues.

With commitment to engineering excellence and continued innovation, Equipmake continues to win new business from customers and partners worldwide across various attractive growth sectors. Due to its innovative approach, Equipmake is well placed to be a driving force in the industry, providing transport solutions for a greener, more sustainable future.

One Health

Established in 2004 and listing in November 2022, One Health provides free, high-quality care for NHS patients needing support in Orthopaedics, Spinal Surgery, General Surgery, and Gynaecology. Our services are provided primarily through GP referrals when NHS patients exercise their statutory right to choose their provider through ‘Patient Choice’. We are also increasingly providing essential support directly to local NHS Trusts to help manage their internal waiting lists of patients who have waited excessively long periods. All our activities are focused on locations where patient needs aren’t effectively met by the NHS, population density is relatively high, and the level of private medical insurance, or ability to self-pay is low, increasing the reliance on NHS.

Our overriding objective is to deliver as much of the patient care as practicable within the community, close to patients’ homes, minimising disruption, inconvenience, travel costs, and unnecessary distress. This approach is supplemented by multiple innovative digital strategies including phone and video consultations and on-line post-operative physiotherapy available at home at a time to suit the patient.

Our core benefits to patients are: FAST – surgical procedures are typically performed within eight weeks of referral; FREE – All care provided to patients is delivered free, we are funded by the NHS; LOCAL – Our 36 Outreach clinics are community based, close to the patients; EFFICIENT – Our dedicated patient liaison team manage all activity and appointments and support all patient queries or concerns.

Over 95% of patients would be likely/extremely likely to recommend One Health to friends and family.

We have invested significantly in increasing awareness of One Health and Patient Choice to good effect. In 2023/24 we treated over 13,000 new patients, undertaking c.34,000 consultations and c.6,100 surgical procedures, another record year with activity increasing every year since the pandemic. It is now generally accepted that we have an important part to play in helping reduce the record 7.5m national waiting list.

Over the last 20 years, we have ‘never not renewed’ a contract, fuelling growth as we expand into new geographies leading to additional NHS commissioner contracts. Notably, our two largest NHS commissioners, representing 75% of our contracted activity, have confirmed that from April 2024 we will be awarded five-year agreements, replacing the previous annual renewals. One Health has worked with the majority of our NHS commissioners for over 10 years.

These longer-term commitments are a clear indication of the value One Health delivers to the NHS and the vital role we play in its supply chain. Having this certainty allows us to focus on activities that make a difference in the longer term and Importantly, allows us to explore investing in infrastructure to support additional NHS patient volume, with the confidence we will be generating revenue to support the investment into the long term. This includes identifying areas with high NHS patient demand and little or no local surgical provision, where we will develop new, owned, surgical capacity through acquisition, partnerships, joint ventures or new build, unlocking step change future growth.

EDX Medical Group plc

EDX Medical Group plc develops innovative digital diagnostic products and services supporting personalised treatments for cancer, heart disease and infectious diseases, 

The Group comprises three core businesses: EDX Medical Limited, Hutano Diagnostics Ltd., and Torax Biosciences Ltd. The Group was admitted to the Growth Market segment of the Aquis Stock Exchange in November 2022 and is now listed on the Apex segment of AQSE.

EDX Medical was founded by Professor Sir Christopher Evans, OBE, together with CEO, Dr Mike Hudson. Sir Chris Evans is a renowned scientist and highly successful entrepreneur with numerous prestigious awards and medals for his work over the last 30 years during which time he has built more than 50 medical companies from start-up and floated 20 new medical businesses on stock markets in six different countries..

For almost 20 years Mike Hudson ran international businesses in health, nutrition and bio-ingredients for Unilever, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Royal Numico before joining the private equity sector in 2000. He has advised on or led over 24 transactions and strategic partnerships with a combined value of over $2 billion. Mike and Sir Chris have worked together on multiple life science businesses over the last 24 years.

For EDX, their vision was to establish a digital diagnostics company that would help address the great medical challenges of our time.

Early detection and management are proven to be the most effective means of saving and extending quality of life. There are more than 20million new cancer cases across the world each year and that number is rising. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Western Societies.

By translating clinical insights into pragmatic solutions combining advanced biological and digital technologies, EDX Medical seeks to cost-effectively improve the detection and characterisation of disease in order to personalise treatment in a timely fashion.

The Group operates a molecular biology and diagnostics laboratory in Cambridge, UK, and 100%-owned subsidiaries Hutano Diagnostics, based in Oxford and Torax Biosciences in Ireland which together are pioneering the development of novel point of care tests that will enable health professionals, to offer more personalised diagnosis and speed up the process of selecting optimum treatments.

EDX Medical works in partnership with outstanding international partners such as Thermo Fisher Scientific EMEA Ltd, a world leader in supplying life sciences solutions and services.

This collaboration agreement enables EDX Medical and Thermo Fisher to jointly develop and potentially commercialise a number of clinical-grade assays – including novel and innovative cancer diagnostic solutions.

It is partnerships such as those with Thermo Fiisher and the integrity of the EDX Medical business strategy that has propelled the business forward in the last year. In the Spring of 2024 the company successfully raised more than £5m from existing and new investors who share the company’s ambition to be at the forefront of diagnostic innovation. Their continuing support is equipping EDX Medical to accelerate its development of products and services that meet the ever-increasing global demand for clinical diagnosticsolutions to benefit patients.

Shepherd Neame

Shepherd Neame is Britain’s Oldest Brewer, based in Kent since 1698. It is a family business with strong family involvement and a balance of Neame family members and non-family members on the Board of Directors. 

The Company brews, markets and distributes its own beers to national and export customers under a range of highly successful brand names including Spitfire, Bishops Finger, Whitstable Bay and Bear Island. 

The Company also has partnerships with Boon Rawd Brewery Company for Singha beer, Thailand’s original premium beer.

The Company owns and operates 296 high quality pubs and hotels throughout the South East of England, the majority of which are freehold sites. These pubs are a mixture of 219 tenanted, 71 managed operations, and six free-of-tie pubs, where the Company’s beer products are sold alongside wine and food and provision of accommodation within the retail estate. Our pubs provide numerous jobs and are important assets in their local communities.

The Company also owns various unlicensed properties and small landholdings, the largest of which is the 34 acre residual holding of the Queen Court farm in Ospringe near Faversham, where hop farming was carried out until 1986, and a separate 9 acre holding on the edge of Faversham.

Incanthera PLC

Incanthera is a specialist company focused on innovative technologies in dermatology and oncology.

The Company has developed sophisticated formulation and delivery targeting technology, enabling effective ingredients with precision targeting for optimal efficacy. In December 2023, Incanthera announced a transformational commercial skincare deal with Marionnaud, part of the AS Watsons group, the world’s largest health, beauty and lifestyle retailer, for the launch and distribution of Skin + CELL, Incanthera’s luxury skincare brand range.

Skin +CELL brings scientifically proven formulations to cosmetics, enriched with targeted bioactive ingredients, delivered directly into the skin’s cells to optimise and protect cellular health, energy and protective capabilities.

A.S. Watson Group is the world’s largest international health and beauty retailer, with 16,100 stores in 28 markets, primarily in Asia and Europe, operating the world’s largest portfolio of retail formats, retail brands with the largest geographical presence including a significant online retail presence.

In a commercial update released in March 2024, Incanthera announced that they had doubled the first production order in anticipation of the launch with Marionnaud in Switzerland and Austria and an extension of the product range from four to five products generating projected revenues and profitability for the full year.

Current analyst research* predicts revenues of c.£37m within three years, rising to a potential c.£100m, dependant on commercial roll out.

Incanthera plc floated on the Aquis Stock Exchange in February 2020 and is currently priced at 19p valuing the company at c.£19m. The Company is run by Chairman, Tim McCarthy, and CEO, Dr. Simon Ward