Hamilton Beach Brands, a US seller of home appliances from air fryers to clothes irons, has emerged as the preferred bidder for embattled Irish medical technology company HealthBeacon, which filed for court protection from its creditors in late October.
The Virginia-based group, which has an existing partnership with HealthBeacon and committed to funding the cash-strapped company through the examinership process, submitted the highest offer among three short-listed bidders for the business, according to sources. They did not disclose the financial details of the rescue bid.
The company’s flagship product is a smart sharps bin — about the size of a standard toaster — for use by patients who inject medication at home.
The High Court appointed insolvency practitioner Shane McCarthy of KPMG as examiner to HealthBeacon at the end of October — initially on an interim basis — after it was told the company had “run out of cash” and needed external funding to meet its immediate commitments, including payroll.
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Efforts to secure comment from the examiner and Hamilton Beach were unsuccessful.
The flagship product of HealthBeacon, which was co-founded a decade ago by long-standing former chief executive Jim Joyce, is a digital sharps bin that connects to a patient’s smartphone. It is used for the disposal of injector pens and syringes as well as being a device to track adherence to medication regimes and to prompt people to stay on track if necessary.
Investors pumped almost €50 million into the company since it was set up, including €25 million raised in a peak-of-the-market initial public offering in December 2021. Its market value had collapsed to just €1.18 million by the time share trading was suspended in mid-October as investor confidence evaporated following a sales warning, which led to the ousting of Mr Joyce.
While HealthBeacon had been making progress with the rollout of its technology across key distribution channels, including through US speciality pharmacy groups, it was running way behind plan implementing the deals, due to their complexity. This meant the company burned through cash as it struggled to meet earnings targets.
HealthBeacon also entered a partnership in 2021 with Hamilton Beach to sell its product directly to consumers through the US home appliances group. The deal was an important one for the US company, too, as it marked a diversification into the medical devices market.
HealthBeacon widened its partnership with Hamilton Beach earlier this year to also include management of its supply chain in the US as it sought to rein in costs.
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The importance Hamilton Beach placed on the partnership was underscored by it offering to provide as much as €1.86 million of loans to fund HealthBeacon through the examinership process. Mr McCarthy said in a report filed with the High Court last month that only €1.78 million would be needed.
HealthBeacon continues to receive “very good support” from its customers and suppliers, the examiner said at the time, adding that he was “confident that the company has a reasonable prospect of survival”.
At the date of the examiner’s appointment, HealthBeacon had 72 employees, including 46 in the Republic. A subsequent restructuring and natural exits reduced the workforce to 52 employees — including 31 in Dublin — by late November, according to the court filing.
The bidding process had initially drawn interest from 12 parties, with three selected for a short list before final offers were called last week.
Rebecca Shanahan, an independent HealthBeacon director and a venture capital specialist, was appointed as interim chief executive when Mr Joyce left the business.
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