Technology commercialisation specialist Angle moved back into profit in the year to April and is still a potential takeover target for AIM peer Braveheart Investments.

As well its investment portfolio of ten companies, Guildford-based Angle has a management consultancy arm that is an expert at setting up and running technology incubator parks. This arm, which has been hired on long-term contracts with the London Development Agency and Qatar’s Education City among others, transformed losses of £400,000 into a £1.1m profit last year.

The consultancy arm has historically been used by Angle to source commercialisation opportunities, but due to the macroeconomic outlook chief executive Andrew Newland says the short-term focus will be solely on the present portfolio. Newland also aims to share investee funding requirements with management teams or other investors – hence equity stakes in three controlled companies were reduced below 50% during the year to leave Angle with six non-controlled investments, valued at £7.3m.

The four other companies remaining under Angle’s control received £3.7m of investment during the year, and prospects look interesting at a few of them. For example, Parsotix has developed a ‘world’s first’ non-invasive test for unborn babies, while Aguru Images has made a first sale of its technology to improve computer-generated images to a major Hollywood film-maker.

Angle has £1m cash on the balance sheet at the year-end, prompting Scottish rival Braveheart (which in April this year proposed an all-share offer rumoured to be around 60p) to claim that Angle has ‘starved’ its portfolio. Even though Braveheart claims the support of Angle’s major institutional shareholders, it will take concessionary steps from Newland before a formal bid can be made. Hold.

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