Irish medical device company Oneview Healthcare has raised €40 million in a initial public offering on the Australian Stock Market.
The St Patrick’s Day float sees the company valued at €140 million in what it said was a heavily oversubscribed IPO. The shares were listed at 3.58 Australian dollars apiece, equivalent to €2.43.
It is the first company to float in Australia and the largest IPO to date this year in a market becalmed by the failing commodities boom.
Oneview said the proceeds from the listing would help fund its current aggressive growth.
The company supplies software to hospitals that integrates software systems across a range of devices. In practical terms, that allows patients and medical staff to review medical records, treatment programmes or results of tests.
The software, which can be installed on bedside terminals, televisions, tablets or phones, can also be used as an entertainment system, or even to order hospital meals. It can operate across different languages allowing staff and patients to communicate even where they do not speak the same language.
The Dublin company, which currently employs 80 people, has won contracts for nine hospitals worldwide where it is up and running and expects to more than double that figure this year.
Oneview gets paid on the basis of the number of beds using its software. At the moment, it is available at 1,300 beds but, by the end of 2016, it expects to have 3,200 beds using its software.
Company founder and president Mark McCloskey said the company’s medium-term pipeline would see it looking to add a further 7,000 beds.
It has agreements with HP and Microsoft to work with those companies’ hardware and has just signed a similar arrangement with Lenovo.
Mr McCloskey said the flotation had come a little earlier than had originally been expected. He said this was because, following strong demand for a €12 million fundraising last December, the company was approached by advisers urging it to consider a public listing.
Founded in 2007, the company had raised €26 million in a series of private fundraising over recent years. In 2015, it reported a loss of €10.7 million on sales of €2.3 million.
Its listing comes at a time when healthcare expenditure is rising in many of its key markets, particularly Australia and the United States, Oneview says. The company also operates in hospitals in the Gulf States of the Middle East and in Ireland’s Laura Lynn hospital
The company says the global market for systems like its platform is growing at around 20 per cent per annum according to recent industry estimates.
Following the listing, company insiders will own 39.4 per cent of the business compared to 55.2 per cent previously. The major shareholders among them include Mr McCloskey and director Will Vicars at 13 per cent. Chief executiveJames Fitter will hold 5 per cent of the equity and chief financial officer John Kelly 1.1 per cent, while chairman James Osborne will have a stake of 0.8 per cent.
Mr McCloskey and Mr Fitter will also receive a €100,000 bonus on completion of the flotation, with Mr Kelly receiving €50,000.
