Intelligent Ultrasound completes £40.5m sale of Clinical AI business

(Sharecast News) - Intelligent Ultrasound announced on Tuesday that it has completed the sale of its Clinical AI Business to GE HealthCare, for an enterprise value of £40.5m. The AIM-traded firm said the sale, which excluded its NeedleTrainer product range and its Simulation Business, would allow it to focus on its core simulation technology while generating significant capital from the disposal.

It said the transaction represented an implied value of 12.4p per share, and valued the Clinical AI Business at nearly 34 times its full-year 2023 revenue.

Intelligent Ultrasound's Simulation Business, which generated £10m in revenue in 2023, including £0.8m from the retained NeedleTrainer product range, would remain under the company's ownership.

As part of the process, the company said it had initiated a capital reduction to create distributable reserves for a planned return of capital to shareholders.

A general meeting to approve the necessary resolutions for the capital reduction would be held on 15 October, with final court approval expected on 18 November.

The firm noted that trading in the second half was broadly in line with the first half, with the UK market constrained by NHS capital expenditure limitations and slower-than-expected growth in North America.

However, sales from resellers in other regions were expected to grow year-on-year.

"The remaining simulation business has tremendous potential with an excellent product range particularly in new areas such as needling," said chairman Riccardo Pigliucci.

"Our mission is to make ultrasound easier to learn and simpler to teach, as we aim to support the rising demand for sonographers worldwide.

"Over the last six weeks we have been engaged in a comprehensive review of the remaining Simulation Business that has involved evaluating the potential of expanding both our medical simulation product range, as well as our sales operations in both reach and scale."

At 1336 BST, shares in Intelligent Ultrasound Group were up 2.93% at 10.55p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.