Small cap news round-up

The luxury shoe maker said it has discussed the strategic review process with its majority shareholder, JAB Luxury, and it has confirmed that it is supportive of the process.

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Goals Soccer Centres said it was in early-stage talks with five-a-side rival Powerleague, but this was "but one of the strategic opportunities currently being assessed".

AIM-listed Goals made the announcement after speculation in the press that the two five-a-side football operators were mulling a merger.

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AIM-listed Empyrean Energy is to raise up to £2.7m to support the acquisition of a 20% stake in West Natuna Exploration, an oil and gas services company operating in Indonesia.

The oil and gas explorer is to raise the proceeds from a placing of 77.45m shares at a price of 3.5p each for every four shares held. The new shares will be admitted to trade on AIM on 12 May.

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Healthcare intellectual property commercialisation firm NetScientific’s portfolio company Wanda has sold its stake in OncoVerse to BTG, a pharmaceutical, for an undisclosed sum.

The AIM-listed company said the sale represented a “strong return” on its initial investment and was a successful exit from the first downstream application from Wanda.

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Civitas Social Housing has completed the £3.5m acquisition of a portfolio of regulated social housing, comprising of three supported living properties, with 13 tenancies, in the West Midlands and south east of England.

The portfolio is expected to be immediately income generating with an initial net yield of 6%, based on the purchase price.

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Shares in Berkeley Energia managed minor gains after it said pre-construction site-based activities were advancing at its 100% owned Salamanca mine in western Spain.

Work on the ground in preparation for the commencement of construction had progressed well with more 600 ha acquired or leased to date under the land acquisition programme.

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Shares in WANdisco surged on Monday after the cloud computing company announced it has won a $4.1m contract, its largest ever, with a financial services multinational.

The financial services firm will use the company’s patented big data and cloud product, WANdisco Fusion, on a volume limited, perpetual license.

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Provider of hosted managed and cloud computing services Nasstar has widened its full-year pre-tax loss as it posted a surge in revenue.

It said full-year trading was in line with expectations with a robust performance from the core group business offsetting the previously disclosed under-performance of VESK acquired assets.

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First Derivatives announced on Monday that the strong trading performance seen in the first half of the financial year ended 28 February had continued into the second half.

The AIM-traded firm said that as a result, the board now expected to report a financial performance for 2017 moderately ahead of current consensus forecasts of £144.3m of revenue and £27.5m of EBITDA.

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Mineral & Financial Investments announced that it received an update on the drill results from its 49%-owned investment, TH Crestgate - a private Swiss based investment company - on Monday.

The AIM-traded company said TH Crestgate released the assay results from the second hole of its four hole drilling campaign, completed by its wholly-owned local subsidiary Redcorp Empreendimentos on its 85%-owned 134 square kilometre Lagoa Salgada zinc-copper project in southern Portugal, 100 km southeast of Lisbon.

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Hummingbird Resources announced a review of activities during its first quarter on Monday, including the advancement of mine construction at the Yanfolila Gold Project in Mali, ahead of its first gold pour expected by the end of 2017.

The AIM-traded company said construction of the 1.2mtpa Yanfolila mine was progressing on time and on budget ahead of its initial mining targeted in the third quarter, and first gold pour by year-end.

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Georgian Mining said an upgraded mineral resource estimate for the Kvemo Bolnisi East copper zone has increased the total tonnage of in-situ copper metal by 92% in comparison to the initial estimate announced on 30 January 2017.

It said the JORC-optimised in-pit 1.2m tonnes @ 1.03% Cu at a 0.4% Cu cut off triggered the commencement of detailed discussions with the company's joint-venture partner regarding the delivery of an initial 1Mt @ 1% Cu for toll treatment.

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Shares in Biome Technologies are up almost a fifth after it confirmed continued progress against its strategy, with its board confident in the outlook for the rest of the year.

Total group revenues achieved for the first three months of the year were £1.5m, up 34% on the same quarter last year.

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Shares in Fishing Republic are up almost 6% after its full-year pre-tax before exceptional items rose 32% to £403,000, from £305,000 previously.

"Fishing Republic has made strong progress over the year as we continued with expansion plans to build a significant position in the fishing tackle marketplace," said chairman James Newman.

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Tiziana Life Sciences has gained approval in Israel of a phase two clinical trial protocol for testing milciclib, a novel inhibitor of cell cycle dependent kinases (CDKs), in patients with refractory hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

The AIM-listed biotechnology company’s similar clinical trial protocol has also been submitted for approval in Italy, Turkey and Greece, in order to evaluate the safety of milciclib in HCC patients who fail to respond, or who are intolerant to the existing standard of care treatment.

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Shares in FairFX are up more than 4% after it more than halved its full-year 2016 pre-tax loss, and said it is trading in line so far in FY 2017.

Chief executive Ian Strafford-Taylor said FairFX had a very successful 2016, beating expectations in terms of all key performance indicators.

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Indonesia-focussed energy company Andalas Energy and Power updated the market on its activities with Indonesia’s national oil company Pertamina on Monday, including the identification of a further two gas fields suitable for wellhead IPP development.

The AIM-traded firm said that was in line with the company’s strategy to develop a portfolio of wellhead independent power projects totalling between 250MW to 500MW of installed capacity fired with gas from existing fields.

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Printed circuit board laminates and materials supplier Holders Technology updated the market on its trading on Monday, ahead of its annual general meeting which was scheduled to be held later in the morning.

The AIM-traded company’s board confirmed that trading for the first period of 2017 had been broadly in line with its expectations.

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Shares in RedT Energy gained on Monday after the energy storage technology appointed changes to its management and board.

Scott Laird has been appointed finance director and David Stewart as commercial director, effective Tuesday.

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Collagen Solutions is to relocate its US research and development headquarters from San Jose to Minneapolis in the first half of the year.

The AIM-listed collagen manufacturer said that the move will bring its commercial operations and research and development team together at the same location.

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AIM-listed securities and facilities management company Mortice and its wholly-owned subsidiary Tenon have agreed to pay up to £4.5m for Manchester-based property services group Elite in cash and shares.

Mortice said the acquisition, which is expected to be immediately earnings enhancing, further expands the company's UK footprint and is in line with its acquisitive and organic growth strategy, as outlined on 22 April 2015.

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AIM-listed Urals Energy has completed an international reorganisation of its subsidiaries which will streamline the management of the group and allow it to gain "modest tax advantages".

The exploration and production company said its operating company on Sakhalin Island and principal profit and cash generator, GJSC Petrosakh, has been merged with Urals Energy LLC, the Russia-incorporated management company for all of the group's operations, which is essentially a cost centre.