Small caps news round-up

ServicePower Technologies celebrated a significant contract win on Tuesday, announcing a new three-year deal with an existing client for its ServiceOperations and NEXUS FS products. It put the value of the deal at $0.75m.

Gresham House announced the appointment of Kevin Acton as its new finance director on Tuesday, taking up the post on 6 June. The AIM-traded specialist asset manager said 38-year-old Acton was joining Gresham House from Oaktree Capital Management, where he was senior vice president responsible for finance and operations in the European Principal team covering three private equity and two debt opportunity funds, with combined assets under management of €5.5bn.

Karelian Diamond Resources has agreed to acquire a diamond mining permit over the Lahtojoki project in Finland, which it predicts can become a profitable low strip ratio open pit diamond mine. Karelian will pay an initial €50,000, followed by another €100,000 after 24 months unless it decides to pull out of the projects, plus a 1% royalty payable either in diamonds or cash once production reaches a certain level.

Speciality drug developer Amryt Pharma has completed its flotation via the reverse takeover of AIM-listed Fastnet, raising £10m of new cash in the process and acquiring two operating companies. As part of the float, Amryt acquired drug German drug development and manufacturing company Birken and Swiss-US biotech SomPharmaceuticals, both of which are focused on potential drugs for rare, or 'orphan', conditions.

IQE was celebrating a major development on Tuesday, having joined the new MIRPHAB consortium to establish a pilot line serving the growing demand for European analytical micro-sensors. MIRPHAB stands for Mid Infrared Photonics Devices Fabrication for chemical sensing and spectroscopic applications.

Ahead of a shareholder meeting next month,Stock Spirits and major shareholder Luis Amaral have both fired off new shots in a war of words that led to the early retirement of the Polish vodka maker's chief executive on Monday. Stock Spirits pointed out that Portuguese cash-and-carry tycoon Amaral has an "an overriding conflict of interest" as he is the CEO and main shareholder of Eurocash, the London-listed company's largest customer, meaning his proposal to appoint friendly directors would give him "undue influence at the expense of other shareholders".

Harvest Minerals capped off a busy quarter with a market update on Tuesday, outlining its move to tangible exploration work at its two Brazilian projects. The AIM-traded company completed a capital raising and a consolidation of securities during the quarter, shoring up its finances going forward.

VinaLand continued its long-running share buyback programme this month, confirming on Tuesday that it purchased 1.1 million ordinary shares of one US cent each, at 66 cents a piece on 15 April. The AIM-traded company had added a share buyback authority to its Memorandum and Articles of Association on 10 December 2010.

Independent Oil & Gas has agreed to acquire the remaining 50% of the North Sea blocks that contain the Blythe gas discovery for an initial £1.5m that should rise by a further $5m when first gas is produced. The purchase will make IOG the 100% owner and operator of Blocks 48/22b and 48/23a and immediately double its independently verified proven and probable (2P) reserves by 17.2bn cubic feet (BCF) to 34.3 BCF, or 6.1m barrels of oil equivalent (Boe).

AIM-listed CloudBuy has signed a three-year contract with HealthShare NSW in Australia valued at £332,996, with the option to extend for another two years. HeathShare NSW is the service delivery arm of NSW Health, which is responsible for delivering pubic health services in New South Wales.