ABV is at a crucial turning point. Historically they were a struggling one product company that carved out a small niche in the mining sector. All of their manufacturing and sales/marketing were in-house, and profitability was at best problematic.
Contrasting that with what you see today is enlightening.
- The firm has steadily broadened its product range in line with prior market announcevents having launched product for five different vehicles, with another 5-6 planned for 2016, all of which will no doubt add to their existing user base of 3000+ vehicles;
- These new products are importantly developed as a result of client requests, which highlights the breadth and depth of the latent market which ABV is targeting;
- The new polymer brake concept also provides them with an exciting opportunity to sell to clients that cannot get past the initial cost as the new polymer brake is 40% cheaper;
- Whilst the garbage truck brake initiative was unsuccessful from a sales perspective, the economic and safety arguments for adoption the brake in that sector remains, and as such they still have a fully developed product for that sector should an opportunity arise;
- The business has been streamlined through the outsourcing of the manufacturing process, which also provides them with the ability to scale up manufacturing as and when required;
- They have been steadily putting in place distribution agreements all around the world, the initial order of 30 brakes from Germaz in Poland that were sold to KGHM which is the world's second largest silver miner
Poland is promising as it confirms there is demand for their product, and crucially provides the firm with a global distribution platform;
- All of these developments are starting to show results, as highlighted in the rights issue presentation where they note a 38% reduction in expenses and a 31% increase in revenue from trading; and
- The additional capital raised from the rights issue will give them the buffer they need to become self sufficient from a cashflow perspective.
Whilst it's been a long journey with numerous disappointments along the way, my view is that ABV is finally getting traction and has a promising future.
ABV Price at posting:
0.7¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
