Small cap round up
Online fashion retailer ASOS reported big jump in total retail sales for the four months to the end of December, with a strong performance over the Christmas period. Total retail sales rose to £605.7m from £444.3m the year before, while total group revenue was up 36% to £621.3m.
Shares in Tertiary Minerals fell as the explorer said there had been development delays to its most advanced fluorspar project in Sweden. The company, which is aims to develop 100% owned fluorspar projects from discovery towards commercial production, said that the Storuman project has been delayed due to poor stock markets conditions for junior exploration companies and a continued poor global market conditions for fluorspar.
Cross-border financial services provider STMGroup announced a pre-close trading update on Thursday, with the board reporting that the group traded in line with market expectations of profit before tax of £2.7m for 2016 - precisely in line with 2015’s result. The AIM-traded firm said that, as anticipated, the pricing initiative taken by the board in the earlier part of the year significantly increased the take-on of new business for its QROPS international pensions product with new policies for the second half of the year up around 50% on the first half and 27% on the second half of 2015.
Nyota Minerals, an AIM listed exploration and development of resource projects, has provided an update on its potential acquisition of online reservation platform BigDish Ventures. BigDish will formally launch in Hong Kong in February 2017, representing its first expansion from the Philippines. The operation in the Chinese city will be led by Frederic Honore-Spinler, who previously worked for Chope, Asia’s largest restaurant reservation platform and Rocket Internet/Foodpanda, the world’s largest food delivery business.
Stadium Group, a supplier of wireless solutions, power supplies and electronic assemblies, traded broadly in line with market expectations last year thanks to growth in the technology products business, while it has also recently made an acquisition.
The contribution from the higher margin technology products businesses continued to grow in line with expectations as it contributed about 60% of total revenue for the year ended 31 December.
ZincOx Resources, an AIM listed company that recycles hazardous waste generated from recycling steel scrap, has announced that it has entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Korea Zinc company (KZC) with regard to the company’s remaining interest in Zinc Oxide corporation, owner of the Korean Recycling Plant (KRP). KZC has agreed to pay a total of $7.95m in two tranches for the remaining interest in ZOC, of which $7m is to be paid within three weeks and the balance once KZC has completed various procedural requirements in Korea.