Investors have been venting their spleen at Omega Diagnostics, with the level of vitriol unleashed against some representatives of the company such that there are suggestions the police may need to be involved. 

From a certain vantage point, the level of their frustration is understandable. In the course of just 12 months the company’s shares have collapsed, losing more than 90 per cent of their value. That’s a hard pill to swallow. 

Since the start of the pandemic a number of small-cap stocks have seen triple and even quadruple-digit percentage increases in value fuelled by regulatory news about new products aimed at tackling Covid. As Omega increasingly focused its efforts on producing the ubiquitous lateral flow testing kits used to detect the virus, retail investors piled in, pushing the shares to unprecedented levels. 

READ MORE: Omega sells Alva HQ and exits Scotland

For more than two years prior to March 2020, Omega's stock trundled along at anywhere between eight and 15 pence per share. Within seven months of the coronavirus train taking off, it was topping 100p per share and never fell to less than 46p until doubts started to circulate in the middle of last year about the fate of the company’s ultimately doomed contract to produce tests for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). 

For those who bought in at those elevated levels, the current open offer to buy more shares at 5p each is of little comfort. The pain is excruciatingly acute in those cases where individuals put most or all of their savings into this one particular basket. 

The first rule of investment is that the value of assets can go down as well as up, followed closely by the axiom that a diversity of investments is essential. In a quest for quick and massive returns, some Omega shareholders have learned this lesson in the hardest way possible.

READ MORE: Omega Diagnostics hit by confirmation of fundraising speculation

The question now is what might become of the 100 or so jobs at what will soon be the company’s former headquarters in Alva. 

Painted into a corner by the government’s decision to let the DHSC contract lapse, Omega had precious few – if any – options that would preserve both the company and those jobs. The sale of the diagnostic test kit facility to Orient Gene will keep employment intact for the time being, but there are no guarantees what its new Chinese owners might decide to do in the future.