Braster: is the company in danger of bankruptcy?
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Braster drew up a restructuring plan on 19 October 2020. The application was submitted to the court together with the proposals for the arrangement of debts to creditors. The adopted measures are to protect the company from bankruptcy, informs money.pl.
Innovative Braster device with great vision
Initially, the company developed the Braster system for self-control of breasts at home, consisting of a breast examination device, mobile application, telemedical platform, telemedical system and Automatic Interpretation System. The Braster Care mobile application connects wirelessly to a Braster medical device that monitors breast temperature distribution, intuitively guides you through the entire examination process and then sends the data to the Braster Telemedical Centre for analysis. The system has received an expert opinion from the Polish Society of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians. Braster’s strategic goal was to transform the company into a global telemedical platform offering services focused on breast cancer detection and integrating telemedical solutions and devices of other manufacturers.
According to the company’s strategy for 2015-2021, the offer was to be addressed mainly to retail customers, with a target of approximately 70% of revenue to be generated by the sale of subscriptions and services, and only approximately 30% of revenue from the sale of equipment. The company launched effective sales of equipment in October 2016 on the domestic market – 282 units with subscriptions and 1,635 units alone were sold. At that time, Braster estimated that within five years, sales of Braster breast examination devices on the Polish market should reach approximately 200,000 units (the total market potential is 4 million women). In 2018. The Company completed work on the device aimed directly at the medical environment – “Braster Pro – breast cancer prevention system” and started selling it.
Difficult times in a company founded by a team of scientists
The company is listed on the WSE. In 2019, the net sales revenue of Braster amounted to PLN 583,000 (down nearly by 33% compared to 2018), and the net loss was PLN 15.,500. What is more, in Q1 2020, the company’s revenue fell by over 34% to PLN 116,000. At the end of March 2020, 188 clinics in Poland and 57 abroad were actively conducting research using the Braster system. It is worth noting that with the small revenues, the company generated very high costs. The restructuring plan indicates that from January 2016 to February 2020, Braster leased an office in Warsaw at the National Stadium. The total cost of this office is over PLN 2.2m. In the second quarter of 2020, Braster launched two new products, i.e. a liquid crystal display for temperature monitoring and protective visors.
It is worth noting that Braser has had intensive times with the position of the President of the Board. Admittedly, from 2014 Marcin Halicki has been the company’s chairman for several years, but from September 2019 he was replaced by Henryk Jaremka. This was the beginning of a turbulent period as CEO of the company. Because Jaremka was dismissed from this position already on 19 January 2020. After that, Adam Szczepanik became President of the Management Board for a short time. He held this position for less than two months. Currently, since March 2020, the company is headed by Dariusz Karolak. According to money.pl, the current President of the Management Board admits that the main reason for the loss of Braster’s financial liquidity was low sales, which did not meet expectations. The article indicates that the costs of launching the product on the market were underestimated, the company had too low a budget and there was a great rush.
