Breakfast buffet
Marlowe (LON:MRL) 362.50p £124.67m
The support services group focused on acquiring and developing companies that provide critical asset maintenance services, issued a trading update for the six months ended 30 September 2017.
Trading in the first six months of the financial year was in line with our expectations.
Both divisions, Fire Protection & Security and Water Treatment & Air Hygiene performed well, with the integration of the four acquisitions completed in the period proceeding to plan and synergies in line with those anticipated on acquisition.
The acquisition of Ductclean UK, which added the complementary activity of Air Hygiene to the Group, was completed in July, and the business has traded well following acquisition.
Net cash at 30 September is expected to be in the region of £3.1m and the Group remains well positioned to continue its acquisition-led growth strategy.
Jersey Oil & Gas (LON:JOG) 215p £25.24m
The independent upstream oil and gas company focused on the UK Continental Shelf region of the North Sea, announced its intention to undertake an equity placement of £20m. The Placing will be effected by way of an accelerated bookbuild, which will be launched immediately following this announcement at a minimum price of 200p.
The proceeds of the Placing will be used to fund the expected Verbier appraisal programme and Cortina exploration drilling, following the recent oil discovery in the Verbier side-track well, 20/05b-13Z, and strengthen the Company's balance sheet as it continues to pursue its production focused acquisition strategy in the UKCS.
In addition to the Placing, the Company intends to provide all Qualifying Participants with the opportunity to subscribe for new Ordinary Shares at the Issue Price, to raise up to £4m before expenses.
Elektron (LON:EKT) 16.88p £31.64m
The global technology group, has completed the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary, Sheen Instruments Limited, to Industrial Physics Inc. The transaction, for a total gross consideration of approximately £1.2m cash of which £1.1m was received on completion and approximately £0.1m is due in October 2018 subject to any adjustment for unforeseen liabilities.
The cash proceeds will be used by Elektron for working capital purposes. The disposal will be dilutive of earnings initially but the Board expects to improve the performance of the remaining businesses.
The disposal is part of the Group's rationalisation of its portfolio, further focusing its investment on its remaining businesses namely Bulgin, Checkit, Elektron Eye Technology and Queensgate.
Octagonal (LON:OCT) 3.4p £16.95m
The Company provided the following trading update based on the unaudited interim figures for the six months ended 30 September 2017 for its wholly owned subsidiary, Global Investment Strategy UK Limited ("GIS") and the Board pleased with the record revenues and profits achieved.
GIS reports record revenues of £3.35m and profits of £1.6m for the 6 months to 30 September 2017 compared with £2.85m and £1.14m, respectively, for the six months to 30 September 2016. This represents an increase of over 17.5% in revenue and 40% in net profit compared with the same period in 2016. The business continued to show increases in net margins from 40% to 47.5% over the comparable period.
Interim period highlights:
· Cost efficiencies and margin improvement continues
· Additional services to clients
· Corporate finance activities made a positive contribution in the period for the first time.
Ascent Resources (LON:AST) 2.1p £43.48m
The European oil and gas exploration and production company, updated shareholders on the progress towards commencing export production from the Petišovci asset to INA in Croatia.
While this process has taken longer than expected it has successfully moved forward through a number of stages between different government departments and INA.
The final stage is an exchange of signatures between INA and the Croatian authorities which the Company has been advised to expect within a short timeframe.
Once this stage has been completed the Company will begin to export gas production.
Anpario (LON:ANP) 412.5p £94.31m
The international producer of natural feed additives for animal health, hygiene and nutrition, announced the appointment of Richard Wood as a non-executive director of the Company with effect from 1 November 2017.
Richard Wood has considerable global animal health experience having built Genus plc from a small company privatised by the government, into a world leading animal genetics company. More recently, Richard was a non-executive director of Avon Rubber plc and was also chairman of Ocean Harvest Technology Inc. a small manufacturer of therapeutic animal feeds using seaweeds.
Verseon (LON:VSN) 126.5p £191.56m
The technology-based pharmaceutical company, announced that Dr. Robert W. Karr was elected as a Non-Executive Class II Director of the Company, effective immediately, at the Company's Special Shareholder Meeting held on October 19, 2017 at 14:00 PDT.
As detailed in the announcement of the Special Meeting made on September 25, 2017, Dr. Karr has previously served in a range of Senior management roles in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, including Senior Vice President of R&D Strategy at Pfizer and Chief Scientific Officer at Tioma Therapeutics. He brings to Verseon broad expertise spanning drug discovery and development, clinical trials, as well as investor relations and partnering efforts.
PowerHouse Energy (LON:PHE) 1.12p £10.76m
The company focused on ultra-high temperature waste-to-energy and waste-to-hydrogen systems, and the creator of Distributed Modular Gasification (DMG©), hosted two open days at the Thornton Science Park near Chester on Wednesday and Thursday this week. The purpose was to demonstrate the Company's G3-UHT gasification system to investors, potential business partners and media.
The system, using tyre crumb as its feedstock, completed this 36-hour trial on an uninterrupted basis, with the syngas produced being visibly flared for demonstration purposes.
"The development of our G3-UHT system and DMG© is progressing according to plan and we are delighted to have had the opportunity to showcase it successfully to more than 100 attendees over the past two days.”
Osirium Technologies (LON:OSI) 159p £16.53m
The UK headquartered cyber-security SaaS provider, announced that both Think Money and M-Netics have renewed their contracts for 12 months.
Thinkmoney, part of the Think Money Group, a UK-based banking services provider, has worked with Osirium to transform its IT platform to support its key current account, loan and credit card products. Part of the IT project remit was to significantly improve management control and governance of privileged access to critical IT systems. A relatively small but highly secure subsystem has been implemented to encompass 50 multi-platform servers, backend databases, firewalls and other network and security devices.
Mobile technology solutions company, M-Netics, provides end-to-end solutions covering all aspects of mobile hardware requirements for leading logistics providers, manufacturers, retailers and field service organisations. Osirium has implemented a platform to control 'off-domain access' to servers on separate networks in multiple locations.
Osirium delivers to both customers its PxM product offering of Privileged Account Management, Privileged Task Management and Privileged Session Management modules and associated services.
President Energy (LON:PPC) 10p £113.24m
The upstream oil and gas company with a diverse portfolio of production and exploration assets focused primarily in Argentina, announced that it intends to raise approximately $8m, representing approximately £6.1m at a price of 10p per Placing Share. Rob Shepherd, Miles Biggins and Jorge Dario Bongiovanni, all directors of the Company, intend to participate in the Placing.
The net proceeds from the Placing and Open Offer will contribute towards a number of important developments in the coming months. In particular the proceeds will:
· Strengthen the Company's capitalised position as it continues to actively consider other appropriate production acquisition opportunities capable of delivering strong shareholder value
· Support and accelerate the ongoing work programme at the recently acquired Puesto Flores and Estancia Vieja fields in the Neuquén Basin situated in the Rio Negro Province, Argentina, which has the potential to materially increase reserves and production to over 3,000 boepd.
· Contribute towards the overall funding package or monies to be paid to the Rio Negro Province in relation to the extension of the Concession for Puesto Flores.