Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The company

Antenova is a leading developer and supplier of high performance antennas and RF antenna modules for mobile handsets, portable devices and laptop computers. Antenova's patented High Dielectric Antenna (HDA) and balanced antenna technologies enable integrated antennas and RF antenna modules that are smaller, higher in efficiency, operate across multiple bands and offer more robust performance.

Antenova's high performance integrated antenna solutions along with the gigaNOVA range of GPS, 2.4 and 5 GHz antennas are ideally suited for an extensive range of applications, including GSM and CDMA, 3G, GPS, 802.11 a/b/g, Bluetooth, Wibree and Zigbee.

1) You've just opened a facility in China. How important is this market to Antenova and why?
China is the fastest growing major market in the world right now. And, the vast majority of our customers and partners either design or at least manufacture in China. This includes their wireless enabled consumer devices that are sold around the world as well as the huge domestic Chinese market.
While our customers recognize the strength of our technology and products over our competitors, it not enough just to have a superior technology or products.
It is still very important to have sales support, technical support, and manufacturing support close to them to meet the often demanding requirements of responsiveness to remain competitive with our much larger competitors. In addition, most of Antenova's products are manufactured and/or assembled in China as well.

2) Are there plans for further expansion in Cambridge?
Cambridge is our global headquarters and is critical to our continued success. Cambridge is a hotspot for wireless technology and there is a wealth of talent in the area.
We are continually interviewing and looking for top candidates to grow our team here. However, Antenova is a global company with a global market, so our strategy has always been to expand our global operations into all our major markets.
We opened our Asia headquarters and design centre in Taipei, Taiwan in September 2005, which has already tripled in headcount since it opened and expanded our R&D capability in the region.
Our Chicago office, which opened a couple of months ago, serves as our US headquarters and centre of excellence for our growing RF capability. And now with our first location in China open in Shanghai, we will begin focusing our attention on building out facilities in Japan and Korea in the near future.

3) Does Antenova plan on making any further acquisitions over the next year? In what areas?
As we have demonstrated in the past, we are open to acquisitions and have fortunately enjoyed two successful acquisitions so far. And, we maintain plans to do more acquisitions in the future that fit into our long term strategy and to deliver increased shareholder value.
Antenova is strong in creating unique antenna capabilities and are leading the industry in designing and integrating our market leading antennas with RF components. Our M&A focus will most likely be in those areas.

4) What is the focus of your current R&D activity?
Our integrated RF Antenna Modules - RADIONOVA - is our current major R&D activity. We have created a range of these RF Antenna Modules for mobile and wireless applications that lowers product develop-ment costs, improves overall wireless system performance and offers more design flexibility for the device manufacturers.
The GPS RADIONOVA RF Antenna Module is available now for wireless consumer devices and is incredibly popular with the customers. An imaginative approach and innovative technical thinking have made Antenova a world leader in high performance embedded antennas and RF antenna modules.
To remain a market leader Antenova maintains a policy of continual investment in R&D and the creativity of our scientists and engineers leads to a stream of new products and technologies. Future applications currently under development include UWB, WiMAX and Mobile TV.

5) Which of your markets is likely to deliver the biggest growth in the mid-term?
We have well balanced revenue from all our antennas and RF antenna module products - whether it be for mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, PNDs, etc. However, our RADIONOVA range of RF Antenna Modules appears to be the fastest growing product line right now. Because they incorporate the antenna with RF components, they are a higher value offering in terms of design, performance and time-to-market for our customers - all of which equates to higher revenue potential per unit than a standard antenna product.

6) Wireless is perhaps THE growth technology sector. What issues are you experiencing in terms of managing this growth?
While the growth of the wireless sector has been outstanding for Antenova, it can sometimes be difficult managing the sharp rise in orders that typically occur in the last 5 months of the year to hit the Christmas season product release - not to mention staying on top of all the new wireless technology standards and the trend for converged devices.
As an antenna supplier we love convergence, because the more wireless applications that a device integrates, the more versatile antennas it needs to enable them.
Antenova recognized the growing need to design small, embedded multi-band and multi-mode antennas for the growing wireless market.
So, we provide a range of high performance multiband antennas (3, 4 and 5 bands) that meet the small size, high efficiency and high performance needs of not only today's but also the next generation of mobile handsets, converged devices and mobile broadband enabled laptops.

7) Are you able to put any facts and figures on your growth targets?
As a private company we can't give you any actual figures. But, I can say that we grew over four times in revenue and product shipments
last year. And we expect to maintain this level of growth for the next few years.

8) Has there been any development regarding the timing and mode of the exit you plan to provide?
The board of directors and I are constantly reviewing the best type and timing for an exit for the best return for our shareholders. We have a sound strategy for growing our business, which is fully supported by the board and the executive team.
We have decided to focus our attention to successfully growing the business, which is 'on plan' - so we think the exit will take care of itself!

9) What would you single out as your biggest achievements since you took the helm at Antenova?
There is no single achievement but actually probably three things:- 1) Building and leading an incredibly talented, focused, innovative and global team - not just the management team but the whole company, 2) Growing the business from no market presence to being a leading antenna company and the fastest growing, and 3) Helping to create the RF antenna module business that has never existed in the industry previously and gaining such overwhelming acceptance.

10) Your background is in the US. What are the biggest differences between the UK and US in terms of business culture?
While I am American with that cultural background, I have also spent the majority of my career in global roles. The US does have a fiercely competitive spirit in business and the UK possess a long history of innovation and international experience. To be a successful global company, one cannot think of itself as a 'US', 'UK' or whatever company.
We have an experienced international management team, not to mention a very multi-national engineering, commercial and operations team - and that's just here in the Cambridge office. I believe that we're making the most of our 'diversities' and this accounts for a lot of Antenova's success.