I'm just catching up after lunch... A couple observations:
Bidding war, I agree, is unlikely. Fair value is the norm for Medtronic acquisitions. Ask folks at $48B Covidien and $1.7B Mazor. They are not unhappy people.
As for the ADDITIONAL $41M...
We got the $1.5M up front. We got another $18M from Steven Blow Ventures. Okay, then we could say "...and we will get an ADDITIONAL $41M from Medtronic." Did the check already clear for the first $10M payment from that? Not sure. But we're not broke now.
As for Hugo and Enos timelines... one can only guess at this point. Enos is probably 98% completed for hardware, and software needs tie-ins to Digital Surgery to integrate fully into MDT's stable. Maybe add some additional logging code and more redundancy; pretty straight-forward stuff for software development.
Let's say we are ready again for IDE (which was already prepared) approval and clinical trials, maybe January/February time frame-ish. Submit PMA to FDA around April/May, Approved device in 6 months, around October/November (which allows for FDA-requested clarifications and additional data for an expedited application), and looking at Mazor X, that would be the time to announce the acquisition.
Hugo, that's another story. Maybe they have been in a deep skunkworks mode since the initial debut in September and will surprise everyone with something sleek. The initial debut of the capstone for their next big program should have been received with accolades and a 3 to 5% bump in share price. Instead, they were mocked for the space requirements and lost a couple bucks off PPS the next day. I once likened it to the Homer, the car by Powell Motor Co. in the Simpsons, wondering aloud if Hugo had a horn that played La Cucaracha. Their next step had better be the anti-Hugo to be received well by the market. And since Titan's tech is small, sleek, and capable, it meets the anti-Hugo definition to a T. A great starting point to get into the marketplace with Enos as is, and use it as a starting point for developing a larger, more robust system to replace Hugo.
I'll use one more Simpsons reference, prefacing it with Bart's evil twin brother... anyone remember HIS name? Of course... Hugo! So if Hugo is the evil child that is kept in the attic and fed fishheads, Medtronic's next iteration of a capstone system should be named Bart! (And for the other Simpsonites out there, yes, I do recall which was really the evil one!)
In any event, I don't foresee any overlap in regulatory approval timelines for a couple reasons. Enos is really close to ready, "Bart" is not. And Enos will be a predicate device for "Bart" due to shared technologies, making approval much quicker and easier for MDT's eventuality as a follow-on to Enos. Also, Titan will be tasked with pushing Enos through regulatory approval, so Mr. Jensen will rise to the occasion for us and in doing so, clear a much easier path for "Bart" later.
All just my own suppositions, but I believe things could play out much as described above. Except Bart. They won't name it Bart, nor Boaty McBoatface. Enos could indeed be an acronym for Enabled Natural Orifice Surgery, but Hugo??? Huge Ugly Gigantic... nah, that's not it. And I don't recommend Snake Armed Robotic Surgery (SARS) either. Any suggestions? Just for fun, of course.
Hey, wait... Bi-lateral Armed Robotic Thing (BART). Nah.
