Tag Archives: hsp

ISDX

Etaireia Investments (ETIP) has raised £10,000 at 0.25p a share following its announcement that it has bought a freehold property in Sunderland partly owned by Etaireia director Baron Bloom. The 11,000 square foot Ivy Leaf Club is generating income of £31,200 a year. Etaireia paid 210 million shares at 0.1p a share for the property. Baron Bloom and Oliver Fattal were issued 105 million shares each. There are plans to change the use of the property from a social club to residential/student accommodation. At 0.04p (0.3p/0.4p) a share, Etaireia is valued at £600,000.

Brewer Daniel Thwaites (THW) has bought back 1.26% of its share capital for £862,500 (115p a share). Two directors have acquired a total of 115,000 shares at 115p each. Directors own 42.1% of the company.

LED lighting supplier Gowin New Energy Group Ltd (GWIN) says that convertible loan note holders owning the £250,000 worth of convertibles in issue have converted them into shares at 0.02p a share. The 125 million new shares are equivalent to 21.9% of the enlarged share capital. Tsai Cheng-Feng and Chao Chih-Feng each own 8.76% of the company and Dai Ming-Hsuan holds 4.38%. They did not previously own any shares.

Oil and gas explorer Nordic Energy (NORP) will not be able to publish its results in the allotted timescale so trading in the shares has been suspended. At the suspension price of 0.9p, Nordic is valued at £900,000.

Equatorial Mining & Exploration (EM.P), which still has plans to move to the lightly regulated standard list, has raised £360,000 from the issue of 8% unsecured, irredeemable convertible loan notes, with one warrant exercisable at 0.01p a share, attached to each of the 0.1p loan notes. There are 1.5 billion warrants in issue. The cash will go towards covering the costs of exploration in Nigeria and the expenses of the move to the standard list.

AIM

Facilities management services provider Mortice Ltd (MORT) has won a major new contract with the University of Hertfordshire. Mortice’s recently acquired subsidiary already worked for this client but the new ten year deal is worth more than £55m. The previous contract was worth £1.8m a year. The new deal includes planned maintenance, grounds maintenance, pest control, cleaning and hygiene services. The deal followed a seven month tender process. The contract should be earnings enhancing, although Mortice will have to invest £1m over the length of the contract.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has tabled a rival bid for KBC Advanced Technologies (KBC). The offer is 210p a share and values KBC at £180.3m. Yokogawa is involved in industrial automation and it believes that the consulting and software skills offered by KBC will fit with this business. Aspen Technology Inc says that it will not increase its 185p a share offer.

Health insurance products provider Personal Group (PGH) is losing Royal Mail as a client for its core business but it could gain additional business for its home technology salary sacrifice business Let’s Connect. Personal will not be selling any more medical insurance products to Royal Mail staff from March but existing clients will still be paying for insurance through payroll deduction until the end of March 2017. Payments will then move to direct debit, although clients could choose to stop paying. Let’s Connect is negotiating with Royal Mail. An initial contract is expected to last four years. Last year’s trading was in line with expectations helped by the full year contribution from 2014 acquisition Let’s Connect.

Richard Ames is stepping down as chief executive of hobbies and toys company Hornby (HRN) following its profit warning in the previous week. In the UK, a strong Christmas was followed by subsequent weak sales. International sales are starting to improve following a period disrupted by the reorganisation of management in Europe. Even so, this year’s loss will be worse than forecast and there will be a £1m write-off. The underlying loss will be up to £6m. There is a danger that banking covenants could be breached. Roger Canham will become executive chairman.

Scientific instruments supplier Judges Scientific (JDG) is acquiring Hampshire-based CoolLED, which supplies illumination systems for fluorescence microscopy, for £3.5m plus up to £1m more dependent on performance. Operating profit has to be £1m in the year to June 2016 for the full earn out to be paid. In the 12 months to September 2015, the underlying operating profit was £750,000. Judges already owns one of CoolLED’s main customers.

Coal and transport services provider Hargreaves Services (HSP) reported halved revenues from continuing operations in the six months to November 2015. Underlying pre-tax profit slumped from £20.3m to £3.2m and this led to the interim dividend being slashed from 10p a share to 1.7p a share. Net debt was £30.8m at the end of November 2015. Hargreaves is reducing its dependence on coal, although all divisions reported lower profit. Coal production lost money and stocks have increased. There is potential to generate cash from the property portfolio.

Transport optimisation software and services provider Tracsis (TRCS) says that its revenues for the six months to January 2016 were more than £14m, up from £12m but profit will be lower due to acquisition costs and the disposal of the Australian traffic data operations. The seasonality of the acquisitions means that they will make a larger second half contribution. There was £8m in the bank at the end of January 2016.

MAIN MARKET

Standard-listed cash shell daVictus (DVT) is seeking to acquire a restaurant or bar franchise business that is operating in south east Asia. Trading started on 29 January and the share price has settled down at 11.25p. Jersey-based daVictus raised £1m at 10p a share but £335,000 of that went on expenses. Prior to the flotation, chief executive Richard Pincock owned 1.25 million shares which was then the whole of the share capital. Non-executive director Malcolm Groat is an ex-director of London Mining, which is a former AIM-quoted company that was placed in administration.

Construction services provider North Midland Construction (NMD) says that it will still make a profit this year despite one-off losses. It has sorted out most of its problem contracts and this will lead to an additional loss of £3.1m in 2015. That means the profit will be lower than originally envisaged. There is one more problem contract to sort out. North Midland Construction has an order book for 2016 that is worth £195m, which is similar to 2014 revenues.

Creightons (CRL) has acquired equipment, stock and manufacturing IP of Broad Oak Toiletries from its administrator for £600,000. Broad Oak was also involved in toiletries contract manufacture and the deal could add up to £3.2m to revenues in a full year – the business had previously generated annual revenues of more than £19m. The product range will be expanded.

World Trade Systems (WTS), which has been a fully listed shell for well over a decade, has sourced a potential deal with Suzhou Weibao Investment Co Ltd, which is a supplier of biotech and healthcare products. Suzhou Weibao will transfer its business activities to a subsidiary of WTS and its founder Dr Shao Chen will join the WTS board. The business activities will commence on 1 March. Suzhou Weibao will loan WTS £1m, which will pay off other loans, including those from current WTS majority shareholder Kudrow Finance. Avalon Enterprises and JH Global are injecting £50,000 into WTS at 2p a share.

Passenger aircraft leasing company Avation (AVAP) increased its revenues by 14% to $31.5m in the six months to December 2015. However, pre-tax profit fell from $6.98m to $5.57m, even though this includes a $305,000 gain on an aircraft disposal, due to higher interest costs. The financial benefits of the new aircraft added to the fleet have yet to show through.

TRADING FACILITIES

Folk2Folk, which is a lender focused on rural businesses, is planning to raise £1.5m through the issue of EIS eligible shares via Asset Match. Existing shareholders are raising £2m from selling existing shares. The offer price is £263 a share. This is a combined offer so investors will receive 57% existing shares and 43% new shares, which are eligible for EIS relief. The existing share capital is valued at £16m. Folk2Folk (www.Folk2Folk.com) has committed to make its shares tradable on Asset Match but this could take 12 months. Folk2Folk is a peer to peer finance business but it is an arranger and does not take the loans onto its balance sheet. Jane Dumeresque, is chief executive of Folk2Folk. She is a former finance director of fuel cells company AFC Energy and financial services firm Syndicate Asset Management, both quoted on AIM at the time. Minimum investment is £20,000.

ANDREW HORE