OptiCept Technologies is a provider of the food and plant industry with technological solutions that are used to increase the sustainability of various raw materials. The company works with biological processes that provide increased extraction from the raw material, extended shelf life reduced waste, and retained taste, aroma, color, the nutritional content of the end product. The company has a patented technology within PEF (pulsed electric field) and VI (Vacuum Infusion). The company sells its products on a global level and is headquartered in Lund.
We are discontinuing our coverage of OptiCept as the company has terminated the research service agreement. Consequently, we will no longer be giving a target price (prev. SEK 5.3) or recommendation (prev. Reduce) for the stock. OptiCept is investing in the growth of its patented technology platforms based on Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) and Vacuum Infusion (VI), which have clear customer benefits and short payback periods. Growth to a larger commercial scale has been slow in recent years, but the success in converting existing pilot projects into concrete orders has clear potential to change this in the coming years. In our view, OptiCept shareholders should pay particular attention to the company's ability to maintain its emerging momentum in FoodTech order intake, as this has a clear impact on how quickly cash flow can become positive.
OptiCept has announced the preliminary outcome of their rights issue, which indicates that subscriptions by exercise of subscription rights and subscription applications without subscription rights amount to a total of ~59% of the Rights Issue. Thus, the preliminary outcome indicates that an additional approximately ~11% will be subscribed for by guarantors. In total, the rights issue is therefore expected to reach 70% of the maximum subscription, or 56.4 MSEK before expenses. While we had anticipated the rights issue to be fully subscribed, the fact that the stock price has occasionally traded slightly below the subscription price makes this outcome less surprising.
OptiCept has announced that it has signed an agreement for its PEF technology with a global producer of pineapple products in Thailand. We view the growing recognition of OptiCept's PEF technology in Thailand as positive as the country is among the world’s top five pineapple producers. While this development is encouraging and supports our current estimates, it does not trigger immediate changes.