plant health care plc


1
from inventor to investor
the inventor
sometimes help comes from unexpected places it was a power outage
that led plant health care founder and chief scientist donald marx to an
important discovery in developing a unique environmentallyfriendly way to
foster plant growth
marx’s research career has been devoted to mycorrhizal fungi which are vital
to plant health and have existed on plant roots for millions of years
while with the usda forest service in the 1960’s he set up a greenhouse
experiment to grow these fungi on pine seedlings one weekend the power
went out shutting off the greenhouse cooling system when he arrived the next
morning the temperature in the greenhouse had reached more than 130

Summary:
 plant health care plc


7
highlights

plant heath care was established in 1995 in pittsburgh pennsylvania in the united
states its products are aimed at the agriculture commercial landscaping and land
reclamation industries through both direct sales and supply and distribution agreements
with major agrichemical industry partners plant health care’s products create
both environmental and economic beneﬁts for its customers and capitalise upon
longterm trends toward natural systems and biological products to promote plant
growth health and yield
financial highlights ➢ turnover up 34 to 183 million 2006 137 million
➢ gross proﬁt up 37 to 84 million 2006 61 million
➢ gross margin up from 447 to 456
– due to upfront fee income from partners and entry into the higher margin
harpin business
➢ loss before exceptional costs costs of sharebased payments interest and
taxation of 44 million 2006 loss of 25 million
➢ net loss of 54 million 2006 loss of 30 million and
➢ net cash at 31 december 2007 of 98 million 2006 37 million
operational highlights ➢ first myconate manufacture and supply agreement signed with bayer cropscience
in january 2007
– exclusive for seedcoated corn soybean cotton and sunﬂower
➢ in december 2007 agreement signed with monsanto to evaluate develop and
commercialise certain applications of the harpinbased technology
– made possible by the acquisition of the harpin intellectual property from
eden bioscience
➢ signiﬁcant contribution from us agriculture division in its ﬁrst full year of operation
➢ new share capital of 10 million raised in september and
➢ post year end steve weaver appointed to the board of directors as finance
director on 28 march 2008