Enfis Group

Bombed-out Enfis, the loss-making efficient lighting concern, has reduced its cash burn rate and reviewed its strategy.

In a recent update, the 'LED light engines' and arrays company confirmed 2009 turnover topped £700,000, down from £1.63m in 2008, with the Swansea-based business closing the year with cash balances in excess of £1m, sufficient for Enfis’ near-term working capital requirements, having reduced the burn rate since November by closing its North American office and paring back UK and Shanghai costs.

Enfis is convinced its fortune lies in the LED based Solid State Lighting (SSL) market, large and growing as a result of global energy saving initiatives driven by ‘political and economic imperatives’. The group has hired engineering and technical sales staff, offsetting the investment through payroll cost reductions elsewhere and is now attacking the high power lighting sector, which incorporates lots of intelligent monitoring and sensing solutions and where Enfis has ‘powerful’ IP.

Key target markets include entertainment lighting (film and TV production, concerts and theatre), medical lighting, architectural lighting, medical and industrial applications as well as high end retail lighting. And the way to address these markets, Enfis insists, is to focus sales and marketing efforts on high quality lighting fixture and OEMs selling branded products, as well as working directly with select resellers and selling direct into key accounts.

Enfis, whose shares have dimmed from a 100p 52-week peak to present disappointing levels, is forecast to narrow losses on £2.5m sales in 2010. With prospects beginning to brighten, the shares are worth keeping on your watch list, though the risks outweigh any recovery attractions for the time being.