Small cap news round-up
Smart Metering Systems has lifted its full-year pre-tax profit and dividend after what it styled as a transformative year for the company.
"We have seen a strong start to 2017 and are well positioned to continue making progress in our core markets," said chief executive Alan Foy.
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Myanmar-language social media, entertainment and payments platform MySquar announced on Tuesday that it successfully integrated and utilised the carrier billing service of Telenor Myanmar - a leading Norwegian telecommunications provider operating in Burma since 2014, for MySquar's mobile applications and games.
The AIM-traded firm said Telenor will earn a share of revenues as part of the integration. Currently, MySquar users make purchases using mobile top-up phone cards which the board said can be inconvenient.
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Specialist producer of technically advanced leather and luxury leather goods Pittards announced its results for the year to 31 December on Tuesday, with revenue falling to £27m from £30.5m in the prior year.
The AIM-traded company said underlying profit before tax was £200,000, and it made a final loss before tax of £4.1m, swinging from profit before tax of £700,000 in 2015.
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Investment company Limitless Earth announced on Tuesday that it made a further investment in Saxa Gres, a private Italian company focussed on recycling industrial waste into the production of porcelain stoneware tiles.
The AIM-traded firm had invested €350,000 in December 2015, acquiring 350 SaxaBond notes each of which had a nominal value of €1,000 and a coupon of 10%.
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Oil and gas exploration company Bahamas Petroleum Company updated the market on its activities on Tuesday, including a licence extension to its southern licences.
The AIM-traded firm said that in June 2015, the Government of The Bahamas renewed its four southern licences for a second three year exploration term.
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Video-analytics company Big Sofa Technologies is expanding in the North American market with the opening of a new office in the US.
The company said that its new hub in Philadelphia is strategically located within reach of existing and potential customers including several large consumer insight agencies and consumer packaged goods firms.
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Shares in Orogen Gold have dived more than a third after it raised almost £4m, proposed a capital reorganisation and unveiled a new strategy to become a cash shell and seek a reverse takeover, at the same time changing its name.
Orogen Gold said a review found that it was no longer in shareholders' interests for the company to continue providing financial support for its mineral exploration activities.
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Judges Scientific's shares nudged higher after the company improved its full-year revenue and dividend, but posted a roughly two-thirds drop in pre-tax profit.
Chairman Alex Hambro said 2016 was a year of contrasts for Judges with the completion of a record four acquisitions accompanied by a disappointing trading performance.
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Shares in Augean fell by almost 7% after the specialist waste-management business' full-year pre-tax profit was halved as it recycled an improved dividend to shareholders.
Chief executive Stewart Davies said 2016 saw the group deliver double-digit growth in revenue, operating cash flow and EBITDA.
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Shares in Goals Soccer Centres are up almost 5% after it scored a full-year pre-tax profit of £3.7m, a turnaround from the prior year's loss of £6.2m.
Sales were up 1.6% to £33.5m, from £33m.
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Renewable electricity supplier Good Energy Group has agreed to source offshore wind power from Dong Energy’s wind farm in the North Sea.
Good Energy will receive 12% of the output from Dong’s 210 megawatt Westermost rough wind farm, which is enough to power over 26,000 average homes.
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Letting agency Hunters Property is to buy Bristol and Gloucestershire estate agent Besley Hill Franchising for £2.5m, which will be part financed through an equity placing.
The acquisition will be paid for with £2.25m in cash and the remaining £250,000 through a placing of 421,578 shares at price of 59.301p each to Besley Hill, which will also be subject to a 12 month lock-in.
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88 Energy’s Arctic Fox drilling rig in the North Slope of Alaska has completed mobilisation to the oil and gas explorer's appraisal well.
The rig is now at the Franklin Bluffs gravel pad, where the Icewine#2 project’s appraisal well is located.
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Legal services-focussed UK consumer marketing business NAHL Group announced its final results for the year ended 31 December on Tuesday, with underlying revenue declining 2.6% year-on-year to £49.4m.
The AIM-traded company said underlying operating profit was up 15.1% to £18m, as its underlying operating profit margin increased by 5.6 percentage points to 36.4%.
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International aesthetics company Sinclair Pharma announced its unaudited results for the year to 31 December on Tuesday, with revenue from continuing operations rising to £37.82m from £24.97m in the prior period.
The AIM-traded firm changed its accounting reference date from 30 June to 31 December during the year following the disposal of the non-aesthetics business, which the board said was in order to align itself with industry peers.
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Caledonia Mining Corporation announced its operating and financial results for the fourth quarter and the year ended 31 December on Tuesday.
The AIM-traded firm owns 49% of the Blanket Mine in Zimbabwe, and continued to consolidate Blanket with the operational and financial information set out on a 100% basis unless.
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Chip-based mass spectrometry instruments developer Microsaic Systems announced its audited financial results for the year ended 31 December on Tuesday, with the board claiming a reduction in the company's cost base and a closely managed cash flow.
The AIM-traded firm said overheads stood at £3.67m - approximately 16% below the prior year, while cash at the end of the year was £5.73m and in line with market forecasts.
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AIM-listed Alliance Pharma has gained £5m in compensation from Sinclair Pharma in connection to a sales-shortfall of Kelo-stretch, a cream that treats stretch marks, which it bought in December 2015 as part of its acquisition of Sinclair's healthcare products business.
The £5m compensation, which the company will use to reduce its loans, consists of £4m to be paid by 30 April and £1m to be paid by 30 June 2018.
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AIM-listed North Sea explorer Independent Oil & Gas has made several changes to its board and management including the appointment of a new deputy chief executive and chief financial officer.
Andrew Hockey, who has 35 years in the oil and gas industry has joined the board as deputy chief executive. He previously worked at Fairfield Energy and Sound Energy, as well as led the early development of Clipper South, a producing gas field in the southern North Sea.
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Spoken word audio on-demand platform Audioboom is aiming to raise £4m in order to consolidate the company’s revenue growth.
The AIM-listed company said it would drum up £4m through a placing of 146.4m new shares and a subscription for up to 13.6m new shares at 2.5p per share, which both represent about 17.8% of its share capital.
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AIM-listed explorer Tertiary Minerals has completed the sale of its non-core gold assets in Finland for £100,000 to Aurion Resources, a Canadian precious metals miner.
The company sold its gold assets, Kaaresselkä and Kiekerömaa, for £100,000 comprising of £15,000 in cash and £85,000 worth of Aurion shares.
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Shares in Mporium Group are up almost 2% after it confirmed its placing had successfully raised £3.05m before expenses to continue with its roll-out of the Impact and Insights products.
The mobile commerce specialist's capital raise comprised about 20.33m shares at 15p apiece.
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Shares in XLMedia nudged 1.34% higher after it confirmed subsidiary Dau-Up had been granted official status as an Instagram partner, specialising in advertising technology.
It said the Instagram partner programme recognised Dau-Up for its leading position in mobile user acquisition, and identified its proven delivery of improved performance for its partners on the Instagram platform.
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StratMin Global Resources’ acquisition of Signature Gold was one step closer on Tuesday, with shareholders in Signature being notified of the proposal.
The AIM-traded firm said that, further to its announcement on 2 February 2017, it could confirm that Signature Gold sent details of the proposed scheme of arrangement under Australian law to its shareholders in order to facilitate the proposed acquisition of Signature by StratMin.
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Shares in SafeCharge are down almost 1% despite it producing an improved full-year pre-tax profit of $26.6m, from $22.9m, and said it had made a good start to 2017.
Statutory revenues for specialist in advanced payment technologies rose to $104.1m for the 12-month period, up from $99.8m. Its total dividend was 16.47 cents, from 11.30 cents previously.
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Starwood European Real Estate Finance announced on Tuesday that it received full repayment of the Dutch industrial portfolio and Danish industrial portfolio loans as a result of the sale of both portfolios, representing a total of approximately £51.5m equivalent proceeds.
The London-listed firm said a number of loans in the group's portfolio benefitted from prepayment protection in their early years, providing the group with a level of income protection should such loans repay whilst in that protected period.