ISDX
Via Developments (VIA1) says the Canal Street project in Manchester should be completed next March, while another Manchester site is attempting to gain enhanced planning permission that would enable 71 apartments to be built. Via expects deposits of 15% of the purchase price of the eight flats in Canal Street before the end of 2016 and this should generate £329,000. The Napier House project in Luton has been granted permitted development for 26 one-bedroom apartments. Additional planning permissions for an extra floor and a change to the facade of the building have been submitted. Via has received firm commitments for £1m of additional 7% debenture stock. This will take the debentures in issue to £4.5m.
Ganapati (GANP), the developer of apps for social media and games, reported an increase in its interim loss from £7.47m to £8.41m following the opening of a London office. Revenues fell from £2.3m to £1.34m. A unrealised foreign exchange loss of £5.71m on Yen borrowings. Management hopes that the Yen bonds in issue will be extended when they come up for repayment. There was £1.5m in the bank at the end of July 2016 but Ganapati wants to raise more money via a share issue to invest in further research and development. .
Ashford Borough Council has granted planning permission for the new Curious Brewery on a 1.6 acre site in the town centre. The Chapel Down Group (CDGP) brewing subsidiary raised money to build the brewery through crowd funding.
Miton Asset Management has increased its stake in rail safety products developer Wheelsure Holdings (WHLP) to 10.2% following the latest share subscription. WB Nominees has increased its stare to 9.2%, while JM Finn Nominees has raised its holding to 8.5%. Chief executive Gerhard Dodl increased his shareholding by 500,000 to 4.215 million shares, giving him 2.4% of Wheelsure.
AIM
Symphony Technology increased its offer for the remaining subsidiaries of Bond International Software (BDI) and the 121p a share bid by Constellation Software Inc has lapsed after gaining total acceptances of 47.4%. Constellation says that it will vote in favour of the disposal to Symphony for £22.8m. The proceeds and the other cash held by Bond will be distributed to shareholders as part of a liquidation process. Between 127p a share and 129.5p a share should be distributed with an initial distribution of at least 126p a share. Constellation originally bid 105p a share and it had acquired the majority of its 29.9% stake in Bond at 75p a share back in 2010.
Cyprotex (CRX) is recommending a bid from German drug discovery firm Evotec AG. The 160p a share cash bid values the contract pharma research services business at £41.7m. The share price has not been at the level of the bid since 2014. Cyprotex believes that it needs a partner to help it grow its operations further and Evotec will help it to grow in Europe.
Sunrise Resources (SRES) has revealed details of the results for the phase 2 drilling at the Bay Street silver project in Nevada. There was no positive news from this drilling and further exploration and drilling is required.
Eastern Europe-focused oil and gas explorer Ascent Resources (AST) has raised £3.5m via a placing at 1p a share and a further £1m via a loan note issue. Some of the cash will be used to repay a £871,510 loan facility from Henderson, which has also deferred the redemption of £8.2m of loan notes to 19 November 2019. The rest of the cash will complete the drilling of two wells and connect them with a refurbished central treatment station. This should enable Ascent to commence gas production by next spring and the gas will be initially be sold to Croatia.
South Africa focused miner Ironveld (IRON) is raising £1.8 at 4.5p a share with some of the cash going towards the development of the 15MW DC smelter for the iron, vanadium and titanium project in the Bushveld complex. The cash should last until next June and the shares come with a warrant to subscribe for another share at 6.75p for 12 months after the shares are issued. The Industrial Development Corporation has approved facilities of R244m for the project and negotiations continue for the remaining debt requirements. The total finance required is R841m. An offtake agreement has been finalised for the high purity iron powder that will be produced over a five year period from the commencement of production. Offtake agreements were already secured for titanium and vanadium.
Workforce optimisation software provider eg solutions (EGS) has won its first direct contract in Asia. The £500,000 contract is with a Singapore-based financial business and 50% of this will be recognised in the year to January 2017. This underpins the current expectations.
There has been further good drilling news concerning the Hot Maden project in Turkey, including some improvements in grade, and Mariana Resources (MARL) expects to report the preliminary economic assessment in late November. This assessment will provide the first guidance about the economics of the project.
Futura Medical (FUM) has raised £12m at 57p a share in order to fund the development of its portfolio of products. This includes the commercialisation of erectile dysfunction treatment MED2002 and trials for pain relief products TPR100 and TIB200. There was £2.9min the bank at the end of June 2016. Henderson will maintain its stake in Futura at just below 20%. The CSD500 condom has received European approvals for an extended shelf life of 18 months for the products manufactured in India. The European supplier has applied for the same shelf life extension.
Arian Solver Corporation (ACQ) has extended the exclusivity period for the Notche Buena gold silver tailings project in Mexico until 27 December. Recovery levels have been poor even though gold grades have been commercial so more tests are required. Arian is assessing an advanced silver exploration project in the US.
Share (SHRE) has made another add-on acquisition of customer accounts and the existing business is trading in line with expectations. The purchase of a book of 8,000 customer accounts with £200m under administration should be completed in April 2017. The Share Centre has maintained its market share of a peer group of brokers revenues, excluding interest, at more than 10%. In the third quarter, revenues were 7% ahead, while customer assets have increased by one-third to £3.6bn. Dealing commission and fee income have both grown but interest income fell by more than one-third. Share is still expected to make a small underlying loss this year.
MAIN MARKET
Nasdaq OMX-quoted AB Traction has increased its stake in engineering and environmental consultancy Waterman Group (WTM) to 14.3%. AB Traction went above 3% in April 2013 and has been building up the stake since then. AB Traction (www.traction.se) is an active long-term investor which does not focus on any particular sector. The strategy is to grow NAV.
Andrew Hore