fin rev article, page-13

Hi Guys and girls, here is the Fin Review article in full as posted on the ADO website for those that didnt manage to buy the paper.
Cheers
Phil

Australia's immigrant population is
often characterised by hard work and
determination. Think of Australia's richest
man, Frank Lowy, or billionaire Maurice
Alter who arrived here as a Polish
immigrant - or the Korean fruit pickers
that fill the fields around Griffith each
year.
It is these attributes of hard work and
determination that Japanese immigrant
Joe Maeji - founder of micro-cap stock
Anteo Diagnostics - believes has helped
him achieve success. The listed stock is
set to revolutionise the speed and
accuracy of blood tests around the world.
The diagnostic product Maeji invented
is designed to minimise the damage to a
biological substance, such as blood, so
that a smaller amount of that substance
can be used while ensuring more
accurate results than conventional
testing products can produce.
Southern Cross Equities recently
recommended a speculative "buy" on the
stock after Anteo secured contracts with
Bangs Laboratories and Merck-two of the
biggest diagnostic suppliers in the annual
$8 billion industry.
While the company is clearly going
places, it has burnt up $10.4 million since
its backdoor listing in 2005. But Maeji is
not giving in. "If I start something I will
finish it," he says.
"I don't think I am particularly
intelligent or anything like that but I am
stubborn. A few years ago, the company
probably would have folded but now we
actually have a product and we have
licensed to two companies."
Maeji comes across as a genuine
Queensland battler who tells it like it is.
"My experience is that you can have all
sorts of companies and ideas but in the
end when you are investing in
something you don't know whether
someone is bullshitting. And that means
you have to look the guy in the face and
say, 'does this person believe in what
they are doing?' "
Maeji learnt to be tough from
growing up in the inner-city Brisbane
suburb of Spring Hill, which until
recently had been known more for its
brothels and shabby houses.
"I had some fights at school but as you
get older the fights get less and less," he
says. His father changed his first name
from Nobuyoshi to Joe to him help fit in.
"Fitting in" was very much his father's
ambition. He asserted one major rule in
the household: "No Japanese to be
spoken in the house - English, English,
English."
Maeji's father was born on Thursday
Island and was involved with helping
pearl divers. He went back to Japan for
educational reasons and returned to
Australia where he operated a laundry in
north Queensland.
"But then something called World War
II happened and my dad got interned,"
Maeji says. "Obviously the local police
would have checked on every single
Japanese person and wrote a report. We
looked up the report and it said because
he was born in Japan and because he had
a Japanese newspaper on the table when
the police arrived that his sympathies
must be with the Japanese."
After the war Maeji's father returned
to Japan, where Maeji was born, and he
then returned to Australia with the
family. After university, Maeji found work
as P researcher for Ampol and then went
back to study for a PhD. From there he
worked for the US giant Chiron, where he
led a team that developed techniques
that made thousands of drug discovery
products. "All my working life has been in
industry, turning an idea into money and
creating an opportunity," Maeji says.
Anteo Diagnostics founder Joe Maeji. Photo Glenn Hunt
He resigned from Chiron's Ausralian
operations and drew up his own
business plan, which eventually became
Anteo Diagnostics. Carrie Hillyard, a
co-founder of venture capital group CM
Capital - which invests on behalf of funds
such as Westscheme Superannuation
and ING Private Capital - backed Maeji's
technology. CM Capital injected several
million dollars in the early days and says
part of the attraction is the enthusiasm
shown by Maeji. "He is a great scientist,"
Hillyard says. "When we did our original
reference checks the whole industry was
positive about him. They said when he
started something, he got it done."