ProPhotonix seeks London stock listing

Salem-based ProPhotonix Ltd., formerly StockerYale Inc., wants to be listed in the small cap section of the London Stock Exchange, chief executive Mark Blodgett is telling British media.The LED and laser company, which sold off all its North American operations (except its Salem headquarters) in October 2009 to Coherent Inc., is hoping to raise 6 million pounds (about $9.3 million) by selling stock on AIM, the London stock exchange for smaller and growing companies, according to the Financial Times.It would be the second U.S. company to join the AIM exchange since the market was launched in 1995, the newspaper said.Blodgett told a British freelancer that he hoped to raise 5 to 10 million pounds ($7.7 million to $15.5 million) with an “imminent” listing on the AIM exchange, according to a report published by Optics.org, a photonics trade publication.ProPhotonix has not put out a press release about a possible AIM listing, nor is the plan mentioned on the company’s Web site. The company did not return NHBR phone calls by deadline.ProPhotonix would use the money to invest in its LED business in Cork, Ireland, which Blodgett says is taking off, as well as its laser operations in Essex, England, the Financial Times said.“This summer, we added a third shift in Cork,” Blodgett told the Financial Times. “Demand is exceeding capacity, which is a good problem to have.”He told Optics.org, “The money we raise will help us to penetrate substantially larger addressable markets than our traditional field of machine vision, such as medicine and general lighting. We plan to double our LED manufacturing capacity in Cork, Ireland, by the end of 2010 and intend to make further investments in our laser module business.”ProPhotonix stock was traded on the Nasdaq exchange in the United States, but it withdrew after it faced delisting because it could not keep up with minimum equity and stock price requirements.It is currently traded on the Pink Sheets, still under the ticker symbol STKR.While the company is no longer required to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, ProPhotonix still releases regular quarterly earnings report. In its last such release, the company said it increased quarterly sales year over year by 41 percent, to $3.7 million, but expenses also went up, resulting in a quarterly net loss of $1 million.At the end of June, the company reported that it had $1.7 million in cash and a negative equity of $2.1 million.The AIM exchange in London — which lists more than 1200 companies with a total market value of about $100 billion — has no minimum equity requirements. The exchange does require that a listed company must work closely with a “Nominated Adviser,” or “Nomad,” a financial adviser to make sure that the company’s actions are “fair and reasonable” to shareholders. ProPhotonix is being advised by Libertas Capital, according to the Financial Times. Libertas provides Nomads for the exchange.ProPhotonix shares closed at 9 cents on Tuesday, unchanged. — BOB SANDERS/NEW HAMPSHIRE BUSINESS REVIEW