Yes I know Im on holiday so Ill make it quick. Just had a phone call and an e- mail from a City pal of mine and hes drooling over this company. Hes a trust worthy chap and has given me some fantastic tips over the last 10 years.
Hes going on about it being a ten bagger, but I dont like that kind of talk, best to just see how the market rates it. He says theres going to be a lot of news flow so that should provide for a momentum driven price. Have to say I have never known him quite so excited about a stock. Ive just gone in and bought a nice holding.

Heres the e-mail he sent me. It might be worth your while having a dabble. Citywire seem to think its going to be a hit.

Health minnow makes strong return to market
Published: 11:51 Wed 22 Oct 2003
By Joanne Wallen, Associate Editor
Email to a friend


The chief of Healthcare Enterprise Group sold his last business to private healthcare firm Bupa and he's now raring to go again; the business may be worth a second look.

Shares in the 24 million AIM-listed business were suspended in August pending a couple of key acquisitions, and returned to the market on Monday after the deals were announced.


Healthcare Enterprise Group (HCEG) (HCEG) paid a total of 11.5 million for the Safa Group and Industrial Pharmaceutical Service (IPS) as well as a 60.7% stake in SafaTec. The company raised a total of 10 million via a placing of shares at 1p to fund the acquisitions and also took on 3.5 million of bank debt.


Chairman Stuart Bruck, who previously founded private medical services business Barbican, which he sold to Bupa in January 1999, is hoping to build a significant business providing medical services to corporate customers. He is hoping to be a consolidator in what he told Citywire is a very fragmented market.


Both Safa and IPS provide first aid kits, training, first aid suites and a host of other medical and occupational health services to large corporate customers such as British Airways, Marks & Spencer, BT, Sainsbury and government procurement agency OGC. Both companies also have advanced 'replenishment systems,' which enable companies to maintain adequate supplies to satisfy UK health and safety legislation.


Bruck said these acquisitions would provide a 'platform' for further acquisitions.


The company had previously accrued minority stakes in a total of 14 small healthcare services companies in the UK and the US. In March it listed on AIM by reversing into a cash shell.


Bruck said the minority stakes offered it an entry into the market, but the company has now decided to focus on wholly operating and owning businesses. It has therefore identified four of its US businesses that it would like to buy the remaining stakes in. These are all within a two hour drive of the company's Los Angeles office, and would be run from there.


The company has also 'packaged up' the remaining eight businesses with a view to selling each of its minority stakes. Bruck said the pricing being talked about is already ahead of the indicative pricing given in March.


Safa and IPS apparently already have a 30% share of the corporate medical services market in the UK. They are both cash generative from operating activities. Both companies are based in the North of England and do not have a huge penetration in London, where Bruck believes the company has 'a huge opportunity.'


He reckons they have so far penetrated around 50% of the FTSE 100, and therefore have a 'great client base' to which they should be able to sell additional services.

SafaTec has interests in a number of early stage companies that have developed some innovative healthcare products and technologies, which the company is hoping to commercialise. For example, Safa has secured a sole international distribution agreement with Ebiox, a manufacturer of a unique decontaminant and cleansing product range based on a patented formula. SafaTec UK has a 35% interest in Ebiox and HCEG is negotiating to acquire a controlling interest for the enlarged Group.


Bruck does not expect to make any more major acquisitions in the next year or so, but thinks there are a lot of small players that the company might be able to mop up.


'This is very exciting, I am looking forward to digging in,' he said.


Shares are currently at 1.7p.


Citywire Verdict:


The corporate healthcare market is becoming increasingly regulated, which favours HCEG. Bruck's track record should also be worth buying into.


The corporate structure looks pretty complicated at present with all of the minority shareholdings, but Bruck now seems keen to get the point quickly where HCEG controls the majority of the businesses it operates.


This is obviously early days, but for anyone that fancies a speculative punt on a penny share, HCEG is worth a second look.ENDS.

Well it looks very good to me although its a speculative punt, what isnt in the markets today. Good chance to get on board aswell on a bad day.

Please DYOR. You are responsible for your own buying and selling actions.

GF.

Sorry to appear ignorant (although I am!), but what is a 'cross trade'? Is it a trade between MMs?

More important, what is it likely to mean for holders of the share?

Thanks in advance

The LSE definition is "a transaction effected as an agency cross or a riskless principal transaction at the same price and on the same terms" ... in other words a block of shares are exchanged between parties where the buying and selling prices are the same (this requires one trade report and it is denoted as an "X" trade).

This can be caused by several circumstances e.g. a fund manager transfering stock from one of his funds to another, or an institution moving stock to a related company, or a large shareholder (what I called "an insider" earlier) passing on stock to another "insider" after having agreed a price.

Basically stock is being moved around and although the reason isn't always immediately clear an RNS message often appears a few days later explaining who has been buying and selling ... though sometimes nothing further happens.

ty intek...learn something every day.

Taken from todays Shares Magazine.

Healthcare Enterprise Group (AIM: HCEG) is a bit of a mystery. The company reversed into AIM-listed cash shell Interactivity Group last March and has kept a relatively low profile ever since.

The normally reticent management made more of a splash in November when it raised 10.5 million in a share placing and announced it had snapped up SAFA group, a medical product distribution and occupational healthcare company. However, little was clear from the interim results about HEGs business apart from its desire to trek the acquisition trail.

The share price tells a better story, having risen 30% from 1.5p, to 1.95p, and it looks set to climb higher.

Face to face, HEGS direction becomes clearer. American chairman Stuart Bruck is a mergers-and-acquisitions veteran In his business acumen a Gordon Gekko of the US healthcare market if you will. Rather than concentrating on blue-sky drug development, he is looking to bring his brand of healthcare M&A to bear on the UK market.

Were a transactional focused company, he explains. Weve bought a lot and intend to continue to grow in that direction.

Bruck was previously chief executive of Barbican Healthcare, sold to BUPA in the 1990s for 25 million following an initial investment of 6 million. The sector is target rich in terms of acquisition, he says. Companies are approaching us now and the profits will drop to the bottom line because we dont need their infrastructure.

Brucks focus is medical distribution and healthcare advisory businesses. The recent purchase of SAFA was canny, giving HEG a profitable medical device distribution business as well as impressive occupational health business.

Headed by Gordon Wood, who lead the management buy-out from parent Intercare(INT), SAFA provides occupational healthcare services to more than half of the FTSE 100s companies, including British Airways(BAY) as well as the Ministry of Defence.

HEGs head office is in London but the company also has bases in Los Angeles and in Germany at Volkswagens plant, where HEG provides occupational healthcare to employees.

SAFA is good solid stuff, says Bruck. It really is the cornerstone of everything else were doing. The division also has an incubator known as SafaTec, which invests in Israeli biotech companies. SAFA was very cash generative but not very sexy, explains Wood.

In 2000 the incubator invested in 10 Israeli companies and has first refusal on any medical product that makes it through. Currently in the pipeline is Ebiox, a decontamination product, which removes the biofilm that holds germs to surfaces and could be used to kill superbug MRSA and SARS. It cleans to a molecular level, says Wood, who also has high hopes of optiscope, a disposal endoscope.

The other half of HEG is its advisory business, encompassing recently acquired MDS, which provides financial analysis and market research. HEG secures revenue through management fees charged to clients and uses the division to fish for new acquisition targets.

Bruck is upbeat about 2004. Its not biotech, its not discovery, its about companies that make money, he says. I would be disappointed if operating profits dont double this year. Speculative buy.

Nice article, I'll be claiming my Moneyam sweatshirt at the end of the year!

Price is up a little--anyone heard any gossip?

briefly i hold some..mike walters has also recommended these..good long term hold

Ebiox test results
http://www.uk-wire.com/cgi-bin/articles/200402260700138429V.html

Ground-breaking too

Very positive write up in shares today - page 29 - titled Healthcare Enterprise set to clean up.

Should see more private investor buying in the next week or so then after the punters pick up the mag in WH Smiths over the weekend. Best to get in before close of play tomorrow me thinks

This company has looked like a potential 10 bagger ever since Stuart Bruck took over the helm - now with the potential of Ebiox (particularly if they can push into into the immensely lucrative US market), it appears that a mere 10 bagger is a trifle conservative.

check write up in sunday mail page 12 secret dealings

insur

I don't have access to the Sunday Mail at the moment but after past articles I have read in the paper I now consider anything I read in the Mail for entertainment value only.
Just my opinion
optomistic

optomistic, the article originated from rather a good source, it was from city wire! not that i am trying to convince you to buy or anything like that, just that trying to get to the original source of a rumour can some times pay dividends sorry about the pun!!!

Here's the summary of what was reported from the iii BB courtesy of someone elses post:

Healthcare Enterprise pulls shrewd investors:

Licht 9m shares.
Malborough UK Equity 85m shares.
Intrinsic Value Inv. 65.5m shares.
+ Mark Horrocks of above 3m shares.

Also heavily backed by Nigel Wray & Nick Leslau.

( page 12 Financial sector Mail)

Worth much more than a punt in my opinion.

Really annoying. I was on the phone with the stockbrokers in the process of buying in at 1.68 when I got bleeped to see a patient. I never got back to the stockbrokers.

Goldfinger - do you think its worth getting into this now at this price?

Does anybody know the exact number of shares in issue of this company. I find MAM shows 145m and other sites have 1.55bn, 2.3bn and 3.1bn.
Thanks sw

I thought 2.7bn - any more offers ?