Small caps news round-up

Cancer treatment developer Advanced Oncotherapy said it had made good full year progress in developing its 'LIGHT' system, although losses for the full year widened. The company's Geneva-based development team is working on a proprietary proton accelerator called Linac Image Guided Hadron Technology (LIGHT).

Global communications network specialist Norcon is seeking shareholder approval to cancel its listing on AIM, saying this is in the both the company's and shareholders' interests. An extraordinary meeting would be held on 29 June to decide the matter.

Stellar Diamonds has been verbally told its application for a mining licence over its 100%-owned Tongo project in Sierra Leone has approved by the Minerals Advisory Board there. The company said the licencing process remained subject to the National Minerals Agency formally writing to Stellar to convey the decision, and drawing up a licence agreement to be forwarded to the minister of mines for approval.

Shares in Intelligent Energy were down 14% as the company booked a wider first-half loss of £45.9m due to exceptional items, from a loss of £27.3m a year earlier. Chief executive Henri Winand said the company had passed through a difficult time, taking some hard decisions for its long-term future along the way.

Shares in Kainos were down more than 5% despite the IT, consulting and software solutions company booking an improved set of full-year results. Statutory pre-tax profit was ahead 20% to £14.3 million, from £11.8 million, while revenue was up 26% to £76.6 million, from £60.8 million. Proposed final dividend was 4.2 pence a share, from nil.

Strategic Minerals shares soared as the company reported that the first drill hole at its Australian Hanns Camp project has intersected nickel sulphides. The sulphides present include pentlandite and exist in a low level disseminated form at approximately 286m downhole, it said in a statement.

Connemara Mining said drilling has started on the gold target on the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal. In a statement, the company said the first of four holes was at 70 metres on Monday night. Target depth for each hole is 250 metres spaced 100 metres apart.

As the Department of Energy and Climate Change launched a consultation about feed-in tariff (FIT) support for the green technologies of anaerobic digestion and small combined-heat-and-power (micro-CHP) boilers and generators, Inspirit Energy said it could benefit from potential changes hitting its rivals. DECC's consultation, which began last week and closes on 7 July, proposed maintaining the FIT for micro-CHP but it does now propose the introduction of a cap of 1,560 units in 2017, 1,560 units in 2018 and 390 units the year after that, as well as proposes a limit of 3.6MW of installed capacity under the feed in tariff scheme up until the end of March 2019.

HaiKe Chemical remained profitable despite selling prices being ravaged by industry oversupply last year and its focus on higher margin products in the fourth quarter has produced encouraging results that have flowed into the new financial year. Tough trading conditions from continued depressed oil prices which put pressure on selling prices and led to strong competition for HaiKe's major products, especially isopropyl alcohol.