Is This Denmark?

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To paraphrase Marcellus, something ain't quite right 'ere.  According to today's i, '...the [DHSC]... has signed a two-year contract with blood test startup (my italics) Thriva [the deal is worth £124m]...to deliver home Covid antibody tests. The company was incorporated in 2015 - (possibly the longest startup in history?) Check out their Companies House listing under Thriva Limited; millions of shares issued to the principals and sundry others at a unit value of £0.0001. Now I know sub-penny shares are a common instrument, but really... At their last filing (year end 2018) they had fixed assets of less than twenty grand.

The main founders both have previous company directorships listed (one apiece), both companies lasting but a short time and trading little or nothing in their lifetime, neither having filed accounts before voluntary registration for striking off. Not exactly pedigree for a government contract of that size, methinks. With the current test kits being manufactured in China (and as I said the other day, procured by what route and with how many profit-taps along the way?) this all just feels wrong in a Soamesy-Serco kind of way. 

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