Laser battle heats up
Article Date: Jul 01 2009
CustomVis has agreed another laser sale in Europe.
Paul van Saarloos, founder CEO of laser eye surgery concern CustomVis, fired back a rebuttal to rebel shareholders, saying their claims ‘show their desperation’.
Yesterday Simon Gordon, the former managing director now leading a group of rebel shareholders attempting to bring about a change of management at the company, asserted that CustomVis was 'frozen out' of Europe, a key market for its laser eye surgery technology. Van Saarloos today responded that ‘we’ve got lasers in France, the UK, Greece, Holland and Portugal. So to say we’re frozen out is incorrect.’
Further backing up his argument, the company today announced a new cash sale of its Pulzar Z1 laser into France. Moreover, the company yesterday installed a laser in Iraq and, it being the last day of its financial year, therefore expects annual revenues ‘to be slightly higher than the market expectation of £1.7 million’.
‘The only reason [the rebel group] are doing this is because they’re seeing we’re starting to do well,’ said van Saarloos. ‘We’re starting to make excellent progress in all parts of the world, to lower our costs and everything’s going to plan.’
Countering Gordon’s assertion that the rebel group potentially holds the majority of votes at Monday’s general meeting, van Saarloos said ‘I’ve arranged a meeting with external European distributors with confidence.’ Furthermore, he said if the rebels do win he would leave the company: ‘I would sell my shares as quickly as I could… There was a lot of friction when we worked together before.’
The company’s shares, floated at 91p in 2003 and as low as 0.25p this January, were up 6 per cent this morning at 1.73p. They will likely prove volatile performers in coming weeks.
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