Screen Technology partners with Wilden AG; boosts cash position
Screen Technology Group plc (SCT.L), the designer and maker of revolutionary high-resolution large-screen displays for high ambient light environments, said today it had entered a partnership with Wilden AG to make injection moulded light guides and to operate its first high speed tile assembly machine.
The Cambridge-based company released the news at the same time as it announced its interim results for the six months to end June, when it recorded a pre-tax operating loss of £1.9m and finished with £2.6m cash in the bank.
It said the deal with Wilden would strengthen its cash position by over £0.5m by the beginning of next year and by over £1.2m in total.
Screen Tech’s chairman Peter Smyth said: “We are very excited by the partnership with Wilden, which will give us a strengthened platform for growth. Wilden, has the technical competence, the resources and the global reach to be a valuable partner and the investment Wilden is putting into the partnership will give us a greater ability to expand to meet expected market demands."
Wilden makes specialist high-quality high-tech injection mouldings. The German-headquartered group has a broad international presence with facilities in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and East Asia.
The deal means Wilden will make two new injection moulding tools to produce light guides for use in the manufacture of Screen Tech’s ITrans tiles. Wilden will also provide £1.1m for the final instalment on the purchase of the first high-speed tile assembly machine when it completes its factory acceptance testing, expected to be in October.
Wilden will operate the tile assembly machine at its own premises on a sub-contract basis.
The Screen Tech Board expects this production "cell" making light guides and ITrans tiles at one location to be a model for more cells that may be located around the world.
Interim results
Mr Smyth said the first half of the year had been a period of “intense effort to enhance our production processes and prepare for large-scale high-speed production.
“Although it has taken us longer to get here than we initially envisaged, we have achieved the key goals we set ourselves midway through the first half of the year. We are now producing consistently high quality ITrans tiles and are close to the capacity of our existing production machines”.
He said that, in the final quarter of 2006, the first high-speed production machines would be operational, which will dramatically increase the rate of production of ITrans tiles, and that full production should be reached by the end of the year.
But, only a small proportion of the increase in capacity is likely to be reflected in sales for the year. The full impact will be felt in 2007.
The company listed on London’s AIM in August last year. Its shares have been enjoying something of a revival over the past few months, though there was a hiccough in June when it announced the delay in achieving full production. This morning the share price was down almost 1% to 53p, valuing the group at around £17.4m.
Screen Technology began to ship products to third parties in August 2006 and expects production during the second half of the year to be fully sold with a number of major projects beginning in the final quarter.
“The prospective order pipeline continues to be strong and as soon as we have the capacity to deliver against large volume orders we will look forward to confirming some exciting and substantial orders during the second half of the year”, Mr Smyth said.
27th September 2006
