NEX EXCHANGE
Eight Capital Partners (ECP) has a 40% stake in Finance Partners Group, which owns an investment in Italy-based Avantgarde Group. Avantgarde owns inventory finance fintech company Supply@Me (www.supplyme.tech), which is being acquired by former AIM company Abal. Last week Abal published the document for the acquisition and admission to the standard list. There will be a placing of Abal shares valued at £42.18m. That includes shares issued to the vendors of Supply@ME. The placing of new shares will raise £2.24m for Abal at 0.6756p a share.
Ashley House (ASH) is getting into more and more financial difficulty and trading in the shares has been suspended. It still has not received the £1m it is waiting to be paid and its modular building business F1 has gone into administration because it can’t pay its debts. Two parties are interested in acquiring F1. Ashley House management is still trying to raise cash.
IFA group AFH Financial (AFHP) is maintaining the rate of growth of revenues and fund inflows in the first quarter of the new financial year and cash generation has improved.
NQ Minerals (NQMI) has secured a $60m debt refinancing agreement. This is a six year facility with an interest cost of five percentage points above LIBOR. Final documentation has to be completed. NQ has raised £177,000 at 7p a share.
The Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office have announced that patients will get faster access to cannabis-based medicines. Sativa (SATI) is well-positioned to benefit because it has a controlled drug licence to cultivate, produce and supply cannabis for research.
EcoVista (EVTP) had net assets of £842,000 at the end of August 2019. The subsidiary that owned the investment property in the books has been subsequently sold for £1.
European Lithium (EUR) is drawing down a further A$2m from its facility with Winance Investment. This cash will be spent on the definitive feasibility study for the Wolfsberg lithium project. The company has yet to draw any funds from the H120 AG finance facility because a security agreement has to be completed.
Forbes Ventures (FOR) is establishing a securitisation cell company in Malta in order to securitise litigation funding assets that have been issued in the UK. ME Group will supply distributed ledger technology and manager the platform. The first securitisation should be complete and generating revenue within six months.
Gunsynd (GUN) is changing its investing policy “to invest in and/or acquire companies and/or projects within the natural resources sector, life sciences sector (concentrating on but not being limited to, plant-based nutrition and environmentally friendly alternatives to food sources) and the alcohol beverage sector, (concentrating on but not being limited to, ingredients used within the production of such beverages including sugar cane, agave, and molasses)”. The geographic focus is Europe, Australia, the US and the Caribbean.
VI Mining (VIM) issuing nearly 4.9 million shares at 15p each in order to pay debts of £730,400. Most of the shares were issued to VI Mining chief executive David Sumner. First Sentinel (FSEN) is raising £183,000 at 20p a share. This will provide working capital.
Dozens Savings 5% bonds (DSO7), maturing on 2 March 2021, have been admitted to NEX.
Trading in Wheelsure Holdings (WHLP) shares has been suspended because the accounts for the year to August 2019 have not been published.
AIM
Hormonal disease treatments developer Diurnal (DNL) has raised £11.2m at 32p a share. These shares will be just short of one-third of the enlarged share capital. The cash will go towards the roll-out of Alkindi in Europe and marketing of Chronocourt ahead of anticipated European approval early next year. Licensing discussions continue for both drugs.
EasyHotel (EZH) has raised £11m at 95p a share, which is a 36% premium to the market price. This follows a mandatory bid by ICAMAP at the same price level last year. The cash will be used to expand the budget hotel network.
Nostra Terra Oil and Gas (NTOG) agreed to board changes and the proposed general meeting requisition withdrawn. Andrew Morrison has become chairman for 12 months and newly appointed non-executive Stephen Staley will take over after that. Matt Lofgran remains on the board and says that he will remain as president of the New Horizons subsidiary for six months after he ceases to be a director.
Ilika (IKA) is taking advantage of a 40% increase in the share price this year in order to raise more cash. The advanced materials developer will receive £15m gross at 40p a share. There is also an open offer at the same price to raise up to £2m more. The cash will be invested in the development of battery products. There is £4m required to move the Stearex technology into a third-party fabrication facility. Given the potential demand for the battery technology, there may be more cash required to increase capacity. The new facility will not be up and running until 2022 and in the following financial year revenues from the facility could be more than £12m. The rest of the cash should cover the period until this happens.
Urban Logistics REIT (SHED) has raised £136m at 137.5p a share in order to invest in logistics properties.
The 2019 revenues of Starcom (STAR) were in line with expectations at $6.8m. Revenues come from product and recurring services revenues. The security products developer has a range of remote tracking and monitoring products that have been developed and are building up revenues. CubeMonk has signed a three-year supply agreement for Kylos air cargo tracking units and this should lead to a significant increase in orders. The deal with Zero Motorcycles for Helios tracking products and revenues should build up from this contract later this year. Revenues could increase to $8.5m this year, which should be enough for Starcom to make a pre-tax profit.
Urban Exposure (UEX) is in talks to sell its loan book to Pollen Street Capital and then dispose of the asset management business. At the end of 2019, net tangible assets were 82.7p a share. The share price is 66p.
Giftware supplier IG Design (IGR) has completed the acquisition of CSS Industries and it says that group factories in China are operational.
Adamas Finance Asia Ltd (ADAM) has raised £203,500 via a placing of shares at 16.1p each. This is the same price per share that Adamas paid when it bought the shares from an existing investor that wanted to exit last December. Adamas paid £386,000 and it still holds the rest of the shares.
Oncimmune (ONC) says that its partner Biodesix has launched the EarlyCDT Lung test in the US under its own Nodify brand.
Destiny Pharma (DEST) says recruitment for the phase IIb trial assessing XF-73 for the prevention of post-surgical infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus has been slower than hoped, but it should be completed by mid-2020. Data should be available soon afterwards.
Xeros Technology (XSG) has sold its Marken specialist cleaning business for £265,000. There is likely to be a £1.6m loss on disposal. Xeros has become a technology cleaning licensing business.
Arron Banks has increased his stake in iodine producer Iofina (IOF) to 12.7%. He may consider requisitioning a general meeting, but there is no official news about this.
Mark Greenwood increased his stake in Richland Resources (RLD) from below 5% to 10.8%.
MAIN MARKET
CML Microsystems (CML) has acquired Plextek RFI for an undisclosed amount in cash and shares. Plextex designs and develops RF, microwave and mm-wave ICs and modules. This expertise will be useful for the group and it can also generate consultancy revenues.
Fandango Holdings (FHP) has agreed heads of terms to acquire an oil well services provider. A prospectus is being prepared.
Argo Blockchain (ARB) increased cryptocurrency mining income by 56% in February compared with January. The £2.56m was achieved at a margin of 50%. A further 1,000 Bitmain Antminer machines have been ordered at a cost of £1.17m. This will be delivered by the end of April. There will be a halving of Bitcoin mining reward in May.
Nanoco (NANO) has not received any firm proposals that would lead to an offer for the company. Some discussions have been terminated, while other talks continue.
Cash shell daVictus (DVT) has published a supplementary prospectus for the acquisition of restaurants developer Typical Dutch NV.
JP JENKINS
Former NEX company MESH Holdings holds 16.8% (16,333 shares) of AI and machine learning technology developer Sentiance, where AIM-quoted Asimilar (ASLR) is subscribing for 10,000 shares at €750 each and has been granted options to acquire 32,225 shares at €650 a share and 10,000 shares at €750 each. MESH was originally going to engage in a share swap with Sentiance, which would have given it an 80% stake in the company. The existing stake was acquired for 125 million MESH shares. MESH has an option over 48,337 shares, which would cost £26.2m to exercise. There is another option to acquire 6,667 Sentiance shares from RRNB Capital. MESH intends to take on a financial adviser. It will need to raise a lot of cash in order to take up its options.
Andrew Hore