Copyright © BusinessAMBE 2023

Once upon a time, biotech company Biocartis and tech company Option, the predecessor of today's Crescent, were stars on the Brussels stock exchange. Today, Crescent and Biocartis shares are virtually worthless.

In the news: Two shares on the Brussels Stock Exchange are valued near 0 euros today.

  • At Biocartis, all shareholder value is being wiped out as major creditors convert their bonds into shares, the company announced this morning. In that operation, the stock is delisted, but there is nothing left to compensate current shareholders.
  • At Crescent, it's simply a matter of price evolution. The penny share took a sharp hit this morning, dipping below the 0.01 euro per share mark.

Painful: Investors in Biocartis see the value of the share, which was still worth 0.29 euros yesterday before the suspension of trading, thus reduced to 0 euros. Analysts are also taken at speed. KBC Securities was still positive on Biocartis in August, with a "build" recommendation and a price target of 1.10 euros. Today, the brokerage house had little choice but to lower the recommendation to "sell," with a price target ... 0.00 euros.

Stock market darling

The track record: Biocartis was founded in 2010 by well-known biotech entrepreneur Rudi Pauwels, who has since left his brainchild. The Mechelen-based company is best known for its mini-laboratory "Idylla," which can perform various tests to detect diseases such as cancer. But commercial results have been disappointing. Biocartis went public in 2015 amid great interest, but since 2019 its share price has been in decline.

As a remin der, eight years ago Biocartis could easily raise 100 million euros at its IPO. The reference price then was 11.50 euros per share and the company's market capitalization 450 million euros.

Rise and fall

Painful (2): In 2005, Option, Crescent's predecessor, was still worth 647 million euros on the Brussels stock exchange. That year, its founder, the late Jan Callewaert, was also voted Manager of the Year. But after the Leuven IT company's spectacular rise came a deep fall, followed by years of financial misery.

  • Despite the support of well-known investors like Marc Coucke, ex-Barco CEO Eric Van Zele, who saved the company from collapse in 2017 and transformed it into Crescent, never quite got the engine going.
  • After propping up the company for the umpteenth time with fresh cash injections, major shareholder Van Zele announced last week that he is looking for a second reference shareholder.
  • Crescent has been relegated to a speculative penny stock for some time. The share price took another hit today. Around 1 p.m., the stock was trading at a loss of more than 22 percent on the stock market charts, down to 0.0096 euros.

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