Small caps news round-up

Blinkx disappointed investors with a trading update that dashed hopes that the third quarter return to profitability would continue into the final months of the financial year. For the full year to the end of March, the digital advertising technology specialist said it expected to generate revenues of $165-170m, having made $91.4m in the first half-year.

Mountfield Group has got off to a strong start to 2016, with the construction and property support services winning 30 contracts of various sizes. The AIM-listed company said a swathe of new contracts in the first quarter totalled £1.1m.

Cash-strapped online fashion retailer Koovs, dubbed the Indian Asos, has issued a bullish trading statement as it looks to drum up support for its latest fundraising. AIM-listed Koovs, which is chaired by former Asos director Lord Waheed Alli, said it had tripled user numbers to more than 1m and enjoyed a 189% increase in orders made through its website to 981m Indian rupees (roughly £10m).

Low oil prices were continuing to hurt sales and volumes at Canadian oil firm Bankers Petroleum, which revealed drops for both figures in its first quarter update on Tuesday. The AIM-traded company achieved an average production of 17,363 barrels of oil per day during the quarter, 4% below the Q4 2015 average of 18,137 bopd. Bankers’ board said that, during the quarter, it continued to optimise current production levels and monitor the economic return of its wells based on the current low oil price environment.

Polemos, a 'sleeping minnow' which has remained a virtually inactive cash shell since it sold the PLUS Markets exchange business four years ago, has reared into life in recent months and has now confirmed completion of a £175,000 fundraising and the appointment of Peterhouse as a new joint broker. Alongside the £80,000 raised in February by broker Beaumont Cornish the new placing is likely to have come as somewhat of a surprise to shareholders, who have seen the company's cash, which peaked after it raised £650,000 in June 2014, dwindle to £207,000 by the end of 2015, a year in which directors neither made nor disposed of any investments.

A growing spat between PetroNeft Resources and shareholder Natlata Partners led to a restriction notice issued from the former to the latter on Tuesday. Early in the day, Natlata Partners said it had received a restriction notice that would bar its from attending, speaking or voting at PetroNeft's upcoming extraordinary general meeting, which was called by Natlata to be held in Dublin on 18 April.

Frank Lewis, chairman of Active Energy, is stepping down from the company’s board with immediate effect. In a statement on Tuesday, the AIM-listed international vertically-integrated renewable energy, forestry management and timber processing firm said Lewis was leaving in order "to pursue his other business interests."

Metal Tiger reported positive test results from its Spanish joint venture operation on Tuesday, and announced it was embarking on a quest to buy into another project showing equally promising possibilities. The AIM-traded natural resources investing company says alteration mapping, and infill soil and outcrop sampling had delineated a new gold target area called El Seranillo North, at the Logrosán Gold and Tungsten joint venture.

Herencia Resources has secured up to $0.5m of emergency funding from two shareholders that could keep it running until June, by which time it hopes to have completed the sale of its Picachos project for up to $5.13m to Next Minerals. AIM-listed Herencia said New York-based Lind Partners's Australian Special Opportunity Fund and Oriental Darius will supply £250,000 apiece in two tranches.

Sareum Holdings was pressing ahead with one of its cancer drug programmes on Tuesday, having received approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for the Clinical Trial Applications submitted for CHK1 inhibitor drug candidate CCT245737. The AIM-traded specialist cancer drug discovery and development company said that, subject to final NHS approval, clinical trials were expected to begin in the second quarter of this year.

AIM-traded investment company Polemos was working to reassure markets after a jump in its share price this morning. The firm, which focuses on opportunities in the natural resources and energy sectors, said it was in the final stages of completing a placing to raise £175,000 at a price of 0.04p per share.