New markets, a wider range and an investor relations push have given a dental supplier a ring of confidence.

It has been a long road for Jeffrey Cheetham, the founder and chief executive of a small Melbourne dental supplier, SDI. After 18 years of low-key trading on the Australian Stock Exchange, SDI caught the attention of small-cap brokers and investment managers last year. The results have been stunning. Several bullish reports on the company over the past year by brokers - including Burdett Buckeridge & Young, Hartleys, and Wilson HTM - have been followed by a surge in SDI's share price, from below