Results round-up
Gas storage company InfraStrata swung to a slight profit as it secured funding from the European Union for its Islandmagee project, while it seeks to gain a further £3m.
The company made a profit for the year ended 31 July 2016 of £66,955, compared to a loss of £6.1m last the previous year. This comprised an initial loss of £177,614 due to the operations of the Islandmagee gas storage project, and a profit of £244,569 due to the discontinued operations of oil and gas exploration.
The next step in the project is the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) and commercialisation, which is to cost about £6m.
The company secured further funding from the EU's connecting Europe facility for up to €4.02m to meet up to 50% of the costs of FEED and with the downhole testing, while selected FEED contractors have agreed to contribute a further £1.1m by way of secured loans.
Both the EU grant and contractors loans are conditional on the company securing the balance of £3m.
Since the end of the financial year, the company's stake in the project increased to 90% from 65%, while Mutual Energy owns the remaining 10%.
Project management and company administration costs decreased 18% to £932,635, which £677,735 was also due to the gas storage project.
Capital costs of Islandmagee during the year declined 83% to £608,760, principally related to the completion of the salt core well programme in late 2015.
A £1.3m loan from Baron Oil plc was repaid in August 2016, following receipt of the balance of European Union grant relating to the salt core well programme.
Some €1.6m was received as an advance on the EU grant for the FEED programme, which is held as a creditor, pending securing the balance of £3m of additional funding required to complete the FEED and commercialisation programme.
New £300,000 secured loan facility from Baron Oil, to meet the company’s minimum short-term working capital requirements while the additional funding to pursue the FEED is sought.
Drug discovery company C4X Discovery Holdings is focusing on early licensing deals to drive revenue as it bids to become the world’s most productive drug discovery engine.
The AIM-listed company said it shifted focus on generating a high value pre-clinical asset portfolio that will drive revenue through early stage licensing deals, while existing fee-for-service agreements were discontinued at the end of the financial year in July 2016.
During the year, the company made two acquisitions, Adorial together with its subsidiaries and its proprietary DNA based target identification platform, Taxonomy3, were bought in March, and computational drug discovery technologies from MolPlex were bought in July.
The company's drug asset portfolio grew from three programmes in addiction, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder at the time of its initial public offering in 2014 to now eight programmes across a number of therapeutic areas.
For the year ended 31 July 2016, the fee-for-service revenue slipped 0.1% to £279,000, compared to the previous year, and loss after tax surged 73.6% to £5.32m or 16.83p per share.
Research and development expenses increased 66% to 5.23m and administrative expenses doubled to £1.81m.
Net assets at the end of July were £4.3m, down 46%, and cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and deposits contracted to £1.32m from £7.48m.