Small cap news round-up
Shares surged in Safestay on Friday after the hostel operator announced it has consolidated its borrowings into one new facility and that the sale on two hostels has been completed.
The AIM-listed company agreed to an £18.4m debt restructuring and refinancing, to replace existing convertible and bank debt, with a single facility with HSBC.
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Trafalgar New Homes says it expects sales from several developments in Kent, due for completion from May 2017 onwards, will contribute to revenues for the full-year ending 31 March, 2018.
These were for developments at Hildenborough, Speldhurst-Tunbridge Wells and Sheerness, respectively for two executive style detached houses, one large detached house and a terrace of six houses.
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Shares in Oxford Pharmascience plunged by more than a third after the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) did not agree with the proposed phase III study design for prescription OXPzero Ibuprofen programme based on endoscopic primary endpoints.
"The FDA has indicated that in order to support an improved gastro-intestinal (GI) safety claim, a clinical outcomes study would be required, including measures such as assessment of the incidence of peptic ulcer bleeding and related complications," said Oxford Pharmascience.
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Condor Gold said work is now underway on a 10,000m drilling programme for 2017 at the La India Project in Nicaragua, with a view to resource expansion and identification of new resources.
It said the drilling followed a placing that raised £5.242m in February.
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Connemara Mining announced the acquisition of five new prospecting licences in County Laois, in the Irish Midlands on Friday.
The AIM-traded firm said the properties lie along the 'Rathdowney Trend' north east of the former Galmoy and Lisheen zinc-lead mines and include the Tonduff and Derrykearn lead-zinc orebodies.
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West Africa-focused Eland Oil & Gas said following the re-start of output in January the OML 40 has now produced more than 330,000 barrels of oil, from the Opuama-3 well only.
To date, more than 160,000 barrels of oil had been delivered to the export terminal with about a further 160,000 barrels ready for imminent injection.
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Exploration and mine development company Ortac Resources updated on its investment in Casa Mining, a private company registered in Mauritius that holds prospective gold mining and exploration licences in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Friday.
The AIM-traded firm confirmed it had increased its shareholding in CASA by acquiring a further 100,000 shares through a private placement at a price of $0.50 per share, and had been issued with a further 30,556 down round adjustment shares.
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Shares in Lekoil gained on Friday after the oil and gas explorer revealed that it has agreed to an advance payment facility with Royal Dutch Shell for a $15m loan to fund development at the Otakikpo site in Nigeria.
The AIM-listed company’s subsidiary Lekoil Oil & Gas Investments agreed to the facility with Shell Western Supply and Trading, a member of Shell’s group of companies.
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Kefi Minerals' shares fell more than 9% after it issued a quarterly operational update, saying its £5.62m fundraising in the period ensured it stayed on track by supporting the working capital needed to fund activities for the next 12 months.
Executive chairman Harry Anagnostaras-Adams said this was as Kefi looked to begin development of Tulu Kapi Gold project during the year.
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Shares in specialist securities firm Cenkos fell less than 2% after it reported falls in full-year pre-tax profit, revenue and dividend, but noted an encouraging pipeline.
"Our successful strategy of being a leading UK institutional broker to growth companies and investment funds has led to us being profitable in every single year of operation and this continued into 2016," said chief executive Jim Durkin.
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Shares in Altona are up more than 4% after reducing its first-half loss and also confirming its application for a petroleum exploration licence (PELA 666) is under consideration by the South Australian Government.
"The board of Altona, along with its JV Partners remain confident that once the PEL is secured the JV Company will commence its test drilling programme at the Arckaringa site, which will in turn lead to a Bankable Feasibility Study," said Altona.
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Investors in acoustic and thermal automotive insulation supplier Autins Group were gathering in Birmingham on Friday for the company’s annual general meeting.
The AIM-traded company’s chairman, Adam Attwood, was set to tell them that the firm had continued to “invest for growth” in 2017.
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West Africa-focussed diamond development company Stellar Diamonds announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, after signing a heads of terms with Octea Mining for the proposed Tongo-Tonguma tribute mining agreement in February.
The AIM-traded firm said the project carried a “robust” attributable post-tax net present value and internal rate of return of $104m and 31% respectively, with the estimated attributable net present value in excess of 40 times the current market capitalisation of Stellar.
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Integrated veterinary services provider CVS Group announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, with revenue improving 28.5% year-on-year to £129.4m.
The AIM-traded firm said its adjusted EBITDA had surged 42.4% to £20.7, with adjusted profit before tax up 47.1% at £16.5m.
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Mobile Streams announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, confirming subscriber numbers in India increased to over 175,000 active subscribers, up from 100,000 during the period.
The AIM-traded firm completed a successful fundraising of £2.2m before expenses in the half-year to fund growth in India, and said it had £2.8m of cash and cash equivalents at 31 December, up from £1.5m, with no debt.
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Online Indian fashion retailer Koovs has signed a new distribution agreement with Souq.com as part of it strategy to expand in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East.
Koovs’ private label collection will be sold on Souq.com, which Amazon has recently said it will buy for about $800m, to customers in the Middle East this summer.
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Sprue Aegis’ distribution, manufacturing and supply agreements with US consumer products firm Newell Brands are to be terminated, but the home safety products developer has also gained contracts with two other companies.
Sprue received 12 months' notice from Newell Brands, to terminate the distribution agreement with BRK Brands Europe, a subsidiary of Newell, dated 10 April 2010 which was extended for a further three years from 1 April 2015, but will now finish on 31 March 2018.
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AIM-listed explorer Independent Oil & Gas said on Friday that it is “close” to signing the sale and purchase agreement for the southern North Sea pipeline in order to use it deliver the company’s gas to shore.
IOG said that the “document is in near final form and should be signed by all parties shortly” with the memorandum of understanding, which includes exclusivity provisions, extended by two weeks to 13 April.
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Satellite data provider Avanti Communications has teamed up with French satellite service provider Numerisat to bring broadband connectivity to ski resorts and chalets across the Alps, including wi-fi hotspots for La Grande Odyssée event visitors.
The companies are to provide 30 megabite per second broadband speed to ski resorts to address the connectivity needs of the 24% of the population of France unable to access the internet, according to the Statistics Portal.
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Shopfitting and interiors company Havelock Europa has appointed Donald Borland as chief financial officer from 26 April.
Borland will succeed Ciaran Kennedy who has been CFO since June 2014 and is leaving to become director of Scotland at Clancy Docwra, a construction firm
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Shares in City broker Numis Corporation are little moved after it said it remained confident in the outturn for its full-year, but noted total income in the second half would be moderately below that achieved in the first.
"We have a number of corporate transactions which are due to complete in April 2017 and based on the strength of our pipeline, we remain confident in the outturn for the full year," the company said in a trading update for the six months to 31 March.