Provexis announces purchase of additional Fruitflow inventory

(Sharecast News) - Provexis, the developer and licensor of the 'Fruitflow' heart-health functional food ingredient, announced the purchase of additional Fruitflow II SD inventory from dsm-firmenich to meet growing demand on Wednesday. The AIM-traded firm said the purchase, combined with the settlement of royalties owed to dsm-firmenich, totalled £0.56m.

Under the terms of a 2022 transfer of business agreement, royalties were payable to dsm-firmenich on gross profits from customers transferred to Provexis.

To fund a new production run of Fruitflow in early 2025, the estimated royalties for 2023 and 2024 would be settled through the issue of 82,945,984 new Provexis shares, valued at £0.56m based on the 0.68p closing share price on 6 December.

The company added that the issued shares, representing 3.67% of Provexis' existing share capital, were valued at £0.58m at the 0.7p closing price on 17 December.

It said the shares would be allocated to DSM Venturing, an existing shareholder, increasing its holding to 256,743,074 shares, or 10.94% of Provexis' enlarged issued share capital.

Following the transaction, Provexis said its total issued share capital would increase to 2,345,891,239 shares, with trading of the new shares on AIM expected to start on 24 December.

"We are delighted to have completed this further purchase of Fruitflow inventory from dsm-firmenich, along with payment in new shares of the estimated royalty due to dsm-firmenich for the two years [ending] 31 December," said chief executive officer Ian Ford.

"This will help the company to fund a wholly new production run of Fruitflow which will be required in the early months of 2025."

Ford said the further purchase of Fruitflow inventory was made to satisfy an increasing demand from customers of Provexis for Fruitflow, adding that it reflected the "positive momentum" that Provexis had enjoyed since starting to transfer customers from dsm-firmenich to Provexis in January 2023.

"Provexis and dsm-firmenich have acted in commercial partnership for Fruitflow since 2010, and the company would like to thank dsm-firmenich for its continued support."

At 1111 GMT, shares in Provexis were up 7.14% at 0.75p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.