Health Check: Flurry in the farmyard as last-standing ASX ‘vet’ play fields takeover offer

• Apiam Health shares surge 50% on $124 million private equity takeover approach
• Audeara’s update is news to investor ears
• Dorsavi’s robotic moves result in $5 million raising

Apiam Animal Health (ASX:AHX) has received a $124 million non-binding takeover proposal which – if executed – will remove the only remaining ASX pure play exposure to the veterinary sector.

Apiam had its roots in Victoria’s regional Bendigo, servicing production animals and feedlots.

Since then, the company has expanded into the lucrative companion animal sector (including horses), across 73 clinics.

Apiam also does a sideline in top-notch porcine semen from its labs.

The Sydney based private equity manager Adamantem Capital Management is proposing 88 cents per share cash. This is a 63% premium on Friday’s close of 54 cents.

Adamantem has an advantage of a call option over 19.9% of the register, held by founder Dr Chris Richards.

The bidder can exercise this right only if a rival bidder comes along.

Apiam says the proposal follows “a period of engagement with Adamantem and other unsolicited interest.”

If the deal goes ahead, Apiam will be the third vet chain to fall into private equity hands.

Founded by Glen Richards of Shark Tank fame, Greencross Vets listed in 2007 and then merged with the Petbarn retail chain in 2013.

The company underperformed and TPG took it over for for $675 million.

With just over 100 clinics, National Veterinary Care was then snaffled up by Vet Partners of the US in late 2019, for $250 million.

Anatara Lifesciences (ASX:ANR) had an antibiotic alternative called Detach, to treat diarrhoea in piglets.

Now the company is pursuing human gut health uses for its active ingredient bromelain, derived from the stems of pineapples.

Muted response to Cochlear results

Cochlear (ASX:COH) is relying on the launch of new hearing implants and sound processors to tempt users to upgrade, amid cost-of-living pressures in its key US market.

However, analysts are divided on whether this will produce the same boost as with previous launches.

The company on Friday reported an underlying net profit for the year to June 30 2025 of $392 million. This was up 1% and at the lower end of guidance. However, it fell short of consensus expectations of $400 million.

Revenue gained 4% to $2.355 billion, although services (processor) revenue fell 9%. This partly was due to slow sales of the company’s Nucleus 8 units, launched in 2023.

Patients are holding on to the still-serviceable Nucleus 7s.

By the end of September Cochlear will launch its you-beaut Nucleus Nexa implants and Kanso 3 processors in the US.

“While some US patients are delaying their sound processor upgrades, which are discretionary in the near term, they will inevitably upgrade over time as their processors eventually break,” Citi says.

The firm rates Cochlear as a ‘buy’, with a price target of $350, as does UBS.

Morgans has downgraded its call to a ‘trim’, with a $300 valuation. Macquarie Equities says ‘hold’, with a 12-month target of $296.

Morgans cautions Cochlear might not get the expected sales uplift from the Nexas, because they are designed for “workplace efficiencies and patient convenience”, rather than improved hearing.

Cochlear downgraded current-year profit guidance to $435-460 million . This is 11-17% higher but compared to consensus expectations of $460 million.

Could be worse.

Audeara’s half-quarter time score

Still on auditory matters, Audeara (ASX:AUA) has released an update, which we can best describe as a ‘half quarterly report’.

So far into the September quarter – roughly halfway, that is – Audeara has generated unaudited revenue of $1.05 million, 46% higher than the entire June 2025 quarter’s $720,000 tally.

The company attributes the gains to the strength of its local sales channels, as well as a payment from client Avedis Zildjian, the world’s oldest musical instrument maker.

Last Tuesday Audeara shares surged 36% after the company signed an agreement with Taiwan’s Eastech Holding to enter the Chinese market.

The tie-up involves Audeara licensing its proprietary hearing technology and provide engineering services, to support the development of advanced hearing devices.

These devices will be sold under a third-party brand.

Over the past two years, Audeara has tweaked its business model from selling its headphones in its own right, to providing the technology to big-ticket international customers.

Dorsavi moves into robotics and AI

This year’s life sciences ‘quiet achiever’ award goes to Dorsavi (ASX:DVL), which for years has plugged away with its wearable biomedical sensors to measure human movement.

Uses include in occupational health and sport.

The stock has climbed 360% year to date and over the weekend the company raised $5 million to further its move into robotics technology.

This was by way of a placement to high-net-worth individuals, at four cents a share.

Dorsavi in June secured an exclusive global licence to resistive random-access memory (RRAM) tech. This was developed by Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

RRAM enables refinements such as video-based AI platforms, and “additional complementary innovations”.

RRAM ties in with Dorsavi developing a new platform, Reflex, for “next generation robotics and human-machine interfaces.”

Dorsavi’s customers include Crown Resorts, BHP, Boeing, Toyota, the London Underground and Coles and Woolworths.

The sports version, Viperform, has been used by several of the major acronyms, including the NBA, NFL and NHL in the US and the AFL here.

“With this funding, we’re now positioned to fast-track multiple high-impact initiatives across human-machine interaction, autonomous robotics and  in-sensor intelligence,” chairman Gernot Abl says.

The company did the raising at a 13% discount to Friday’s close, but a 10% premium to the ten-day average.

Subscribers also receive unlisted options on a one-for two basis, exercisable at 7.5 cents within three years.

Renerve chalks up its first sale

Peripheral nerve injury repair house ReNerve (ASX:RNV) has recorded the first sale – and clinical use – of its new deep dermal tissue product.

The initial case, a reconstructive plastic surgery repair, was for scar tissue post breast reconstruction.

“The case did not require nerve repair, highlighting the benefit of the two new product lines in the Renerve commercial product range,” the company says.

The sale was not material, but important for the company as it grows its commercial business.

Renerve soon expects to launch its Nervalign nerve cuff and the new amniotic tissue-based product in the US.

At Stockhead, we tell it as it is. While Audeara and Renerve are Stockhead advertisers, the companies did not sponsor this article.