IMRIS soars after insider buying

Shares of IMRIS (TSX:IM) are up sharply today after a Christmas present from an insider.

On Christmas Eve day the company announced that existing investor Centara Corp. had purchased 2.37-million units of a private placement priced at $0.284 that included one share and a quarter warrant. The warrant entitles the buyer to acquire one common share at a price of $0.3692 after six months.

Prior to the Offering, Centara and its associates, which include Norpine Holdings Ltd. and David Graves, held 11,899,371 shares of IMRIS, or about 22.9% of its issued and outstanding shares.

IMRIS was founded in 1998 in order to commercialize research done by MRI pioneer Dr. Garnette Sutherland at the University of Calgary. The company, which now has more than forty patents either issued or pending, designs and manufactures Magnetic Resonance Imaging Systems for use in operating rooms. The company’s VISIUS Surgical Theatre can incorporate MR imaging, CT imaging and x-ray angiography in a number of configurations. While at cost of up to $12 million each, they’re not cheap, but the units do allow an MR or CT scanner to be shared by more than one clinical suite, meaning they can prove to be more economical than current solutions.

In late October, IMRIS reported its Q3, 2014 results. The company lost $8.4 million on revenue of $6.9 million. The numbers compared unfavourably to the same period a year priior, when the company lost $3.8 million on revenue of $17.8 million.

At press time, shares of IMRIS were up 24.2% to $0.77.