Small Cap Awards 2022 – Meet the nominees for Transaction of the Year

The Small Cap Awards celebrate the best in UK businesses with market capitalisation of below £200 million. The awards will be presented in London on the 30th June with a panel of market experts picking out the winners. Find out more about the awards, the event and the panel at the Small Cap Awards 2022 website. The awards are made possible through the support of our sponsors.

The nominees for Transaction of the Year are as follows:

Avingtrans plc

Avingtrans plc designs, manufactures and supplies original equipment, systems and associated aftermarket services to the energy, medical and industrial markets worldwide.Avingtrans plc has a proven strategy of “buy and build” in highly regulated engineering markets, a strategy it has named “Pinpoint-Invest-Exit”. Significant shareholder value is delivered through a clear strategy, a strong balance sheet and an agile and experienced management team. 

The Group has several business units organised into three operating divisions: the Energy Divisions comprising Engineered Pumps & Motors (EPM) and Process Solutions & Rotating Equipment (PSRE) and the Medical Division.

The Energy Divisions are comprised of a highly skilled engineering workforce for the design, manufacture, integration and servicing of an extensive product portfolio including specialist motors, pumps,  safety and security doors, pressure vessels and containers. Avingtrans performance-critical power, pump, process and storage solutions support energy systems operating in the most demanding and harshest of environments, onshore and offshore across the globe. 

• The EPM division was built on one brand, Hayward Tyler.  Established in 1815, Hayward Tyler designs, manufactures and services performance-critical electric motors and pumps to meet the most demanding of applications for the global energy industry, as both an OEM supplier and a trusted through life support partner. 

• The PSRE division comprises a number of established brands with expertise across the global energy market.   The brands specialise in the design, manufacture, integration and servicing of an extensive product and service offering including safety and security doors, pressure vessels, containers and skidded HVAC systems.

The Medical Division has specialist expertise in the design and manufacture of innovative equipment for the medical, science and research communities. Including cutting-edge products for medical diagnostic equipment; high performance pressure, vacuum vessels and composite materials for research organisations;  superconducting magnets and helium-free cryogenic systems. The division is also developing its own range of compact, helium-free MRI systems, for specialist applications.

Saietta Electric Drive

Saietta is a multi-national business which designs, engineers and manufactures complete Light-duty and Heavy-duty e-drive systems for electric vehicles on land ranging from scooters to buses (Vehicle categories L, M, N and T) as well as marine applications.

Saietta has engineered breakthrough electric motor technology including proprietary AFT (Axial Flux Technology) and RFT (Radial Flux Technology) which can be combined with in-house power electronics, powertrain controls, mechanical axles and transmissions.

2021/22 was a highly successful year for Saietta moving from an R&D company through to a manufacturer with commercial success in several areas, including a thriving marine division called Propel.

Most recently, Saietta added an 8,800 square metre production plant in Sunderland to its divisions which will enable its rapid growth and expansion to continue.

Medica Group Plc

Medica is the market leader in the UK and Ireland for the provision of teleradiology services, providing outsourced interpretation and reporting of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CT (computerised tomography), ultrasound and plain film (x-ray) images. Medica also offers diabetic retinopathy screening in Ireland.

Medica contracts with the largest pool of consultant radiologists in the UK and Ireland, performing remote access teleradiology across its customer base of more than 100 NHS Trusts in the UK, the Irish HSE, private hospital and insurance groups, as well as diagnostic imaging companies. This enables the Company to offer a fast, responsive service. In addition, Medica operates in Australia and New Zealand through MedX, a 50:50 Joint Venture with Integral Diagnostics Limited Pty.

The Company currently offers two primary services to hospital radiology departments: i) NightHawk – urgent reporting service; and ii) Elective – includes routine cross-sectional reporting on MRI and CT scans, and routine plain film reporting on x-ray images.

These services are underpinned by Medica’s bespoke, secure IT platform that provides market-leading linkage between a hospital’s Radiology Information System (RIS) and consultant radiologists who contract with the Company. Direct RIS access ensures that where the wider patient medical history is available, it can be reviewed by the consultant as part of every report.

Through its subsidiary, RadMD, in the United States, Medica also provides pharmaceutical and biotech clients and contract research organisations (CROs) with high quality, complex imaging services for international clinical trials. RadMD has gained vast experience in the space, having contributed to over 500 international clinical trials, in all phases of clinical research from proof of concept to phase III and with expertise in oncology, as well as a wider range of therapeutic areas including medical devices, neurology and cardiovascular.

Despite the pandemic which had a significant impact on our Elective services, Medica’s teams in the UK and Ireland worked closely with our hospital clients throughout to ensure that we could continue to support reporting of urgent radiology cases including patients presenting with symptoms of Covid-19. Subsequently, we have been engaging with hospitals to provide support for reporting of the huge backlog of cases that have built up as healthcare providers rightly prioritised urgent cases over elective procedures during the pandemic.

We also took the time in 2021 to acquire RadMD, a specialist in provision of imaging services for clinical trials based outside Philadelphia in the US. This is a completely new area of business for Medica and RadMD has also been supporting pharmaceutical and biotech clients to accelerate trials that were delayed during Covid-19. We also formed a joint venture in Australia to help to accelerate access to specialist radiologists to provide more reporting capacity for our clients.

Finally, we used the time during the pandemic to invest in our team and systems development launching a new, state-of-the-art reporting system and enabling it with “Augmented Intelligence” to improve the throughput and quality of the services we provide.

Agronomics ltd

Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with a focus on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company has established a portfolio of 21 companies at the Pre-Seed to Series C stage in this rapidly advancing sector. It seeks to secure minority stakes in companies owning technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals, as well as being fundamental to feeding the world’s expanding population. A full list of Agronomics’ portfolio companies is available at https://agronomics.im/.