)
Backed by a board boasting former senior figures from ResMed (ASX: RMD) and Nanosonics (ASX: NAN), CleanSpace Holdings (ASX: CSX) has made an impact with its ASX listing today.
CleanSpace has exceeded its own expectations, with shares rising 47 per cent, past the $6.50 mark this morning, giving the company a market capitalisation of around $500 million.
The company, which designs, manufactures and sells workplace respiratory protection equipment (RPE) for the healthcare and industrial end markets, raised $131.4 million in its IPO.
Hungry investors have flocked to the med-tech entity as it rides a wave of heightened demand for respiratory protection devices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We are excited about becoming a listed company," said Dr Alex Birrell, who has been the company's CEO since 2014 and executive director since 2015.
"The additional capital raised through the IPO will be directed toward growth activities, in particular into sales and marketing activities.
"Our priority is enterprise customers and ensuring we bring our next generation best practice respiratory protection to their workforce."
CleanSpace claims its AirSensit technology offers higher protection, greater user comfort and cost effectiveness than its competitors.
It is still unclear whether CleanSpace will follow in the footsteps of other Australian medical technology companies like ResMed, EMVision Medical Devices (ASX: EMV), and Pro Medicus (ASX: PME).
But it helps that the company has former executives from three of the ASX's medical success stories ResMed, EMVision and Nanosonics on its board.
These include independent chairman Dr Ronald Weinberger, the former CEO of Nanosonics and the current CEO of EMVision, and executive director and director of operations Dan Kao, the former senior designer for ResMed.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened widespread awareness of respiratory protection," said CEO Birrell.
"While the media focus has been on hospitals, a recent publication on global infection rates in healthcare workers, reported community care workers were at highest risk.
"This was reflected in Australia, with Victorian Health reporting 50 per cent of healthcare worker infections were in aged care and disability workers."
This demand was reflected during the first quarter of FY21 for CleanSpace, with the company reporting accelerated adoption of its products in both healthcare and industry sectors.
More than 10,000 workers across 500 organisations have been trained on CleanSpace respirators in more than 20 countries since the pandemic began.
CleanSpace says the sales mix has been in line with previous months, with the majority taken up by healthcare in the markets of North America, Europe and Asia.
"North America has moved to become our largest market for the first time since we entered that market three years ago," says CleanSpace in an operational update today.
"From an operational perspective the business has performed strongly, with no material disruption to date to its supply chain, logistics and production."
The company is on track to commence operations at its second manufacturing facility in early November, boosting production capacity by $100 million in the medium term, incrementally bringing production capacity by the end of Q3 FY21 to approximately $130 million.
"The increased capacity is good news for our customers who are now looking at shorter lead times," says CleanSpace.
"Global uncertainty remains high, the Board and Management continue to work closely with our teams and suppliers."
As of 30 September CleanSpace forecasts revenue of $31.8 million and EBITDA of $11.6 million for Q2 FY21.
Never miss a news update, subscribe here. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Business News Australia
Get our daily business news
Sign up to our free email news updates.
)
)
)
)
)
