Home » Posts tagged 'MTFB'
Tag Archives: MTFB
Quoted Micro 24 April 2017
NEX EXCHANGE
Chapel Down Group (CDGP) reported a one-quarter increase in group revenues to £10.2m in 2016, however, £3.44m of these revenues came from associate brewing company Curious Drinks, which is no longer consolidated following last year‘s fundraising. Chapel Down owns 49.79% of Curious Drinks voting shares but has a 90.2% economic share of the business. The continuing wine operations increased revenues from £5.56m to £6.79m, while the underlying pre-tax profit improved from £155,000 to £265,000. A further £1.6m of capital expenditure was mainly spent on additional vineyard acreage, which left cash of £1.2m. Wine exports to the US are growing.
African Potash Ltd (AFPO) is planning to acquire investment company Onshore Energy Ltd but it will still require more cash even if the deal goes ahead. Christopher Cleverly is a director of both companies. At the end of April 2016, Onshore Energy had shareholders funds of £1.16m and it has raised further cash since then. The most recent was on 6 April 2017 and the company has more than 100 shareholders. Trading in African Potash shares has been suspended.
NQ Minerals (NQMI) plans to buy the Hellyer gold mine in Tasmania for A$20m in cash and shares equivalent to 29.9% of NQ on a fully diluted basis. The deal will be financed by two loan notes totalling A$13m and a A$8.5m, three year secured loan facility with an interest rate of 12%. The facility provider gets options over 64.3 million shares at 8p each and can appoint a director the NQ board. There is still scope to raise secured loans of up to A$27.5m to repay the A$13m of loan notes and develop the mine. NQ director Roger Jackson is also a shareholder in the current owner of the Hellyer mine and he has a commission arrangement to help finance the project. The assets acquired include three tailings dams and a processing plant.
Goldcrest Resources (GCRP) is changing its name to Bloc Energy when it finalises the acquisition of Georgian oil and gas assets. The general meeting to gain shareholder agreement is being held on 5 May. There are plans to move to AIM in order to raise additional cash for the business and the development of the newly acquired assets. Goldcrest intends to sell its existing gold exploration assets.
Kryptonite 1 (KR1) has invested £100,000 for 1,279,840 Atom tokens. The total initial coin offering by the Cosmos project raised $16.8m within 30 minutes. Cosmos is a proposed network of interconnected blockchains and shouldbe the first bonded point-of-stake block chain in production. Atom is the cryptocurrency for Cosmos.
Ecovista (EVTP) chief executive Louise Stokely has bought 50 million shares – 1.39% of the property investment company.
First Sentinel (FSEN) director Tom Dignall has acquired a 3.85% stake at 11p a share – a total cost of £300,000.
AIM
Verona Pharma (VRP) has launched its public offering of ADSs and ordinary shares ahead of a listing on the Nasdaq Global Market. This followed news that the FDA had given authorisation to proceed with a clinical trial in the US for RPL554 in order to assess its safety and tolerance.
Veltyco (VLTY) is acquiring 51% stakes in two related businesses – Bet90 and www.tippen4you.com – for €2.5m. The same amount of cash has been raised at 39p a share. The acquisitions add further online betting brands to the group.
Motif Bio (MTFB) has announced positive phase III clinical trial data for Iclaprim when used for patients with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). The REVIVE-1 data shows that the drug is reliable and safe. The drug was well tolerated with most adverse effects classed as mild.
FIH Group (FIH) has confirmed that second half trading was better than expected but the profit is still going to be at least one-fifth lower than the previous year. The underlying pre-tax profit will be between £2.3m and £2.5m. Trading in the Falkland Islands was below the record levels achieved the year before. Lower passenger numbers for the Gosport ferry were offset by price increases. Momart improved its profit. There was £15.1m in the bank at the end of March 2017 and this is likely to be used to help fund acquisitions in the UK – although a special dividend is still a possibility.
Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings (IDH) has beaten expectations for 2016-17, helped by the movement in the sterling exchange rate. Revenues were approximately £40m, up 4%, but they would have been lower under constant currency rates. The full year figures will be published on 21 June.
ASX-listed Pharmanet Group has raised A$620,000 in order to provide cash to progress with the acquisition of the gold exploration assets that Keras Resources (KRS) intends to reverse into the company. The reversal is expected to happen by the summer and Pharmanet will change its name to Calidus Resources.
Power electronic systems supplier Turbo Power Systems (TPS) is holding a general meeting on 5 June to gain shareholder approval to cancel the AIM quotation. The management team controls 89.4% of the share capital so this is a foregone conclusion.
MAIN MARKET
Former AIM-quoted Camden Town property developer Market Tech Holdings (MKT) is being taken private by its majority shareholder after less than two and a half years as a quoted vehicle at a discount to its original placing price of 200p. That fundraising was done at a significant premium to NAV and made it easier to add further properties in Camden Town. In July 2015, a further £200m was raised at 223p a share. Management hoped that the combination of property in a fashionable area and an online division would continue to provide a premium to NAV. That has not been true following MarketTech’s move to the standard list. The offer is 188p a share, which values MarketTech at £892.5m. Two years ago, the stated NAV was 140.76p a share but the directors said that the adjusted NAV was 300p a share, although that assumed that all the proposed development of the properties was completed at expected capital investment levels. LabTech already owns 71% of Market Tech so the cash cost of the bid will be less than £300m.
Andrew Hore
Quoted Micro 12 September 2016
ISDX
Mechan Controls (MECP) reported a rise in pre-tax profit from £180,000 to £271,000 on flat revenues of £1.9m in the six months to June 2016. There was £1.08m in the bank. Mechan has declared an interim dividend of 1.1725pa share and the ex-dividend date is 15 September. Trading conditions are better than one year ago and the improvement in the first half is expected to continue in the second half.
Capital for Colleagues (CFCP) has invested £50,000 in return for A shares in IT services provider 2C Services. The A shares have preferential rights to capital in the event of certain exits. Capital for Colleagues has also subscribed for ordinary shares equivalent to 20% of the share capital in return for a nominal sum. The existing investment in The Homebuilding Centre has been converted from £250,000 in loan notes into 250,000 A shares, while further loans of £97,000 have been combined into a three year loan.
Crossword Cybersecurity (CCS) has linked up with AIM-quoted Iomart to work on a machine learning-based way of stopping Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The hosting and managed services business wants to offer the service to its clients so it could be lucrative for Crossword.
Oil and gas explorer Doriemus (DOR), which is also quoted on AIM, has launched a three-for-15 open offer at 0.035p a share to raise up to £865,000. The open offer price is at a 22% discount to the previous closing mid price. The open offer closes on 18 October. The cash will pay for cost overruns of the Brockham drilling and testing programme – Doriemus has a 10% interest – and for further funding of other interests. The directors will be taking up their entitlement.
AIM
SQS Software Quality Systems AG (SQS) is reaping the benefits of its strategy to increase higher margin managed services business. In the six months to June 2016, revenues were 11% higher at €166.6m but underlying pre-tax profit was one-third higher at €11.9m. Net debt was €32.9m, following the acquisition of the remaining 25% of the company’s Indian business, but the second half is always highly cash generative. New sectors are starting to increase their use of software testing services, particularly in the digital area, including mobile payments and smart grids businesses. The US is becoming an increasingly important market and it is expected to overtake Germany as the biggest market.
Belvoir Lettings (BLV) reported a three-fifths increase in revenues to £4.3m in the first half of 2016 tanks to contributions from acquisitions made in the past year. The Northwood acquisition was made at the end of the period so it will not make a significant contribution until the second half. Like-for-like revenues were 10% higher. Pre-tax profit was 69% higher at £1.3m. The unchanged interim dividend of 3.4p a share is nearly covered by underlying earnings per share.
Motif Bio (MTFB) says that patient enrolment for the phase III clinical trial for the use of antibiotic iclaprim for acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections is ahead of schedule. This means that data should be available in the second quarter of 2017. The results of the second iclaprim trial should be available in the second half of 2017. The convertible promissory notes held by Amphion Innovations have been renegotiated. Instead of converting the accrued interest of $441,000 on the $3.55m of loan notes (maturing at the end of 2016) into shares at 24.47 cents a share, Motif will issue 409,000 shares and pay cash of $314,000. Amphion will also provide $15,500 a month of corporate services if Motif floats on Nasdaq.
Sutton Harbour (SUH) says that it expects the government report on the viability of the reopening of the Plymouth City Airport site to be published in the next few months. This will be followed by an independent government inspector making a decision on whether “safeguarding of the former airport site from redevelopment is sound planning policy following the Examination in Public, currently timetabled for March 2017“. The company’s strategic review is continuing.
Minoan (MIN) is one of the first companies to admit that the vote to leave the EU has hit its business. Along with the political problems in Turkey, the EU vote has knocked £100,000 a month from gross profit. Management does believe that this could be a temporary phenomenon. The latest court action over Minoan’s proposed Greek development is due to happen on 16 September. The judges will determine the arguments against the development after the hearing.
MedaPhor (MED) says that the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology has given notice that it will terminate its ultrasound skills training contract because of ongoing litigation over some of MedaPhor’s patents. If the litigation is sorted out then the relationship can be resurrected.
Fishing Republic (FISH) has acquired the Fantackletastic store in Lincolnshire for £150,000 in cash. The 4,000 square feet store is the group’s first in the east Midlands and takes the number of stores owned to 11. In the year to March 2016, the store made an operating profit of £40,000 on revenues of £425,000.
Starcom (STAR) has launched the new version of its Watchlock product but this was too late to benefit the first half figures. Interim revenues slipped from £2.64m to £2.51m, while cost savings meant that the loss was reduced. Starcom has recruited an installation and services company for its Tetis cargo security product.
IPPlus (IPP) is selling its original contact centre business for £6.7m in order to concentrate on its secure payments business. The company’s name will change to PCI-PAL. The sale and leaseback of a property will raise a further £800,000 leaving net cash of £4.8m. A £1m special dividend will be proposed.
MAIN MARKET
New standard-listed shell Vale International Group Ltd (VIG) commenced trading on 5 September. The strategy is to acquire a financial services-focused technology business in Europe or Asia. A placing raised £550,000 at 3.5p a share and the shares have traded at 5p (4.5p/5.5p).
Standard-listed Anglo African Agricultural (AAAP) is raising £475,000 at 0.67p a share in order to pay creditors and finance the growth of food manufacturer Dynamic Intertrade. Cape Town-based Dynamic supplies herbs, spices and seasonings to food manufacturers and the cash will be used to build stock levels and increase production. David Lenigas has been appointed as non-executive chairman and he has subscribed for 22.39 million shares giving him a 12.4% stake. No bids were made during the recent offer period and the strategic review has come to an end.
Andrew Hore