Hybridan Small Cap Feast

Joiners: GS Chain (GSC) has joined the Main Market (Standard). GS Chain intends to identify opportunities within the technology sector, to conduct the necessary due diligence and subsequently complete an Acquisition. The Company is direct listing 399,985,888 Ordinary Shares on the Official List. Market capitalisation at 1p is £3,999,858.88.

Leavers: No Leavers Today.

Banquet Buffet

AEX Gold 42p  £73.5m (AEXG.L)

The independent mining company with an unrivalled land package of gold and strategic mineral assets covering an area of 7,615.85km2 in Southern Greenland, announces that it intends to post its Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended December 31, 2021 and Notice of Annual and Special General Meeting of Shareholders  and Management Information Circular to shareholders tomorrow. Copies of the documents will be available on the Company’s website https:// www.aexgold.com/investors/documents-circulars/ and SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Meeting will be held on Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. (Toronto time). Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxyholders can participate, vote or submit questions at the virtual meeting. Among the resolutions, shareholders will be asked to consider authorising an amendment to the articles of the Corporation to change the name of the Corporation from “AEX Gold Inc.” to “AMAROQ MINERALS Ltd.” Management believes that the time is appropriate to re-brand the Corporation due to the Corporation’s business now being recognised for both holding mineral licences in gold and also in strategic minerals. The name AEX Gold Inc. no longer reflects the Corporation’s evolving business. “Amaroq” also means “Arctic Wolf’ in Greenland reflecting the focus to be recognised foremost as a Greenlandic business. The name also works with the Corporation’s existing logo and thus will require minimal costly rebranding.

Eight Capital Partners 0.05p  £0.2m (AQSE:ECP)

The financial services fintech operating group that aims to source and deliver tech, fintech and other on-trend-sector transactions, announces that its wholly owned independent corporate advisory subsidiary, Epsion Capital Limited, has appointed Richard Day to its board. Mr Day, a qualified lawyer, has had a diverse and successful senior management career, acquiring extensive knowledge of public markets, corporate finance and corporate governance across a range of sectors. He was a co-founder of institutional stockbroker, Arden Partners plc where he worked from 2002 until 2015, and was Head of Corporate Finance for most of his time with the firm. He played an important role in building the business both domestically and internationally. Since then, he has been on the boards of various listed companies. He is currently  Non-Executive Chairman of AIM-listed “Big Data” analytics company, Pelatro plc and most recently, AQSE-Listed The British Honey Company plc, the premium British honey and craft spirits producer. He is also Chairman of Eden Geothermal Limited, a private company, which is drilling the first well on its two-well deep geothermal site at the world-famous Eden Project in Cornwall. 

First Property 34p  £37.7m (FPO.L)

The property fund manager and investor, has signed leases covering some 2,691m2, or 20% of the net internal area (NIA), of its office building located in Gdynia, Poland. The carried value of this building is EUR16m following its write down in March 2021, as a result of it becoming 98% vacant, significantly due to covid related lockdowns. The rent and service charge payable by tenants now totals approximately EUR500k per annum. This equates to about half the cost of operating the building. When fully let it is anticipated that the building should yield some EUR2.5m per annum in rent and service charge. The principal tenant, accounting for 15% of NIA and occupying the entire first floor, is the District Court in Gdynia. The Group expects the presence of the court to attract other legal advisers and practitioners to take space in the building. The building, which spans some 13,400 m2 of NIA, is located at 21 ul. Podolska in prime central Gdynia, Poland’s second largest seaport after Gdansk. The Port of Gdynia has benefitted from considerable investment in recent years and is currently being enlarged further to enable it to handle Baltimax vessels, with corresponding investment in its road and rail infrastructure.  

Fulcrum Utility Service 7.35p  £29.3m (FCRM.L)

Provides a trading update today for its financial year ended 31 March 2022. Since the Group’s fundraise in December 2021, the UK energy market has continued to experience considerable turbulence and whilst the Group’s core multi-utility contracting business has remained relatively unaffected by this, the Group’s meter exchange operations have not been immune to the fallout from the energy market crisis. In particular, the performance and profitability of the Group’s smart meter exchange and management contract with energy supplier, E (Gas and Electricity) Limited, was acutely impacted in the final quarter of the year, primarily as a result of the insolvency of several of the Group’s other energy supplier customers and one of the Group’s labour-only subcontractors.  This resulted in Fulcrum being unable to service the Contract in a manner to maintain the Contract’s profitability for the Group and, as a result, the Board agreed with E to terminate the Contract. Wider market issues of supply chain pressure and cost inflation in materials and labour are weighing on the profitability of the Group’s core multi-utility contracting business. Whilst the Group expects to report adjusted Revenue for the year ended 31 March 2022 of £57.4m, representing year on year growth of 21.8%, adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be approximately £0.5m. Whilst the Board is mindful of the ongoing volatility in the UK energy market, its priority is to refocus the Group’s operations on executing its core utility infrastructure and asset ownership growth strategies whilst protecting and improving margins. Antony Collins was appointed as interim CEO in January this year. Antony has a strong background in business turnaround and, since joining Fulcrum, has worked to put in place a strong and experienced executive team to lead the Group.

Hydrogen Utopia 6.37p  £24m (HUI.L)

The Company pioneering non-recyclable waste plastics to hydrogen technology, confirms that it has been in discussions with Powerhouse Energy Group PLC (AIM: PHE) on a project opportunity in The Republic of Ireland. HUI  has been exploring the possibilities in the region since November 2021and is searching for a JV partner to develop a first of a kind waste to hydrogen facility. There is currently no agreement in place and the PHE Board is considering the proposal and how it may become involved in the potential project, which is at a very early stage.

Neometals 77p  £408.5m (NMT.L)

Neometals battery recycling JV, Primobius, has executed a cooperation agreement (Cooperation) with Mercedes-Benz recycling subsidiary, LICULAR GmbH (LICULAR); The Cooperation follows a Mercedes-Benz announcement in March 2022, highlighting Primobius as its technology partner for the design and construction of a 2,500tpa lithium-ion battery recycling plant (Recycling Plant); The Cooperation is conditional upon LICULAR issuing a purchase order for the engineering, supply and installation of the necessary equipment for the Recycling Plant; Subject to receipt of the agreed purchase order, under the Cooperation: Primobius will enter into long-term research and development collaboration to recycle next generation cell formats and chemistries; Primobius will provide a non-exclusive technology licence for the Recycling Plant, know-how, staff training, engineering and plant management support to LICULAR; and During the Recycling Plant operations phase, the parties will jointly evaluate an industrial-scale operation of Primobius’ recycling technology. The Recycling Plant will be operated at an agreed LICULAR location (which Neometals expects to be Mercedes-Benz’s Kuppenheim Operations in Southern Germany).

Reabold Resources 0.33p  £27.2m (RBD.L)

The  investing company which focuses on investments in upstream oil and gas projects,  announced the appointment of Chris Connolly as Chief Financial Officer to the Company. Chris has over 16 years of experience in the resource industry and joins the Company from EnQuest PLC, where he was Group Financial Controller. Chris has experience across the resources industry having initially trained at Ernst & Young LLP before moving to Canamens Energy Limited, De Beers Group and Ophir Energy. At EnQuest, Chris headed up Group Finance, Group Treasury and Group Systems; leading and managing all internal and external reporting for the Group. Chris also presided over all technical accounting transactions for EnQuest and was a significant member of project teams focused on acquisitions. Chris is a Chartered Accountant and graduated from the University of Bristol in 2005. 

Sabien Tech  22.75p  £3.3m (SNT.L)

The Company focused on a Green Aggregation Strategy, today welcomes the UK and Welsh Governments’ announcement of co-operation in and funding for the creation of a Welsh Freeport. In a landmark statement, both Governments committed to assess jointly bids for Freeport status. The UK Government committed also to providing £26m of funding to support this process. The statement asked that bidders for Freeports should demonstrate both job creation and environmental impact plans in order to secure this status. b.grn Group Ltd, in which Sabien is a 33.3% shareholder, has been working actively to secure a site on Anglesey on which to locate its waste-to-plastic operations. Through this work, b.grn has engaged with the offices of Virginia Crosbie, Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn, and Rhun ap Iorwerth AS/MS, Member of the Welsh Assembly. b.grn has also announced today that it has retained Lambert Hampton Smith (LHS) to advise them on its planned purchase of the Anglesey site. b.grn’s statement regarding the announcement today can be viewed at Sabien Technology Group, Investor communications.

SolGold 26.675p  £611.9m (SOLG.L)

Executive Director Mr. Jason Ward has today resigned as a Director of SolGold effective immediately.  Mr. Ward has decided to resign from the SolGold Board. The Company is in the final stages of recruiting a new Head of Ecuador and Mr. Ward will transition his country responsibilities to continue as SolGold’s Head of Exploration as well as representing the Company with local communities. The Board wishes to acknowledge the tireless efforts of Mr. Ward, both at Cascabel and throughout the extensive exploration portfolio, and his contribution as a Director during his tenure on the Board. The Board welcomes his continued contribution as SolGold moves the development of its Cascabel project forward and advances exploration efforts at the Company’s priority projects of highly prospective concessions across Ecuador.

ThinkSmart  24.25p  £26.1m (TSL.L)

On 29 March 2022, ThinkSmart Limited, a specialist digital payments platform business, announced an intention to return approximately £2.5m to shareholders and is today confirms General Meeting to approve this return will be held on Wednesday, 29 June 2022. The Board is also notes that Block, Inc (NYSE: SQ) will be hosting a virtual Investor Day on 18 May 2022. The Board retains a positive outlook of the value of its Block holding of 618,750 shares, despite current market volatility. The Company expects to be in a position to provide a more detailed strategic update regarding its Block holding ahead of its year end results announcement.  ThinkSmart continues to provide an outsourced call centre customer support service to Clearpay and is responsibly managing the wind down of its legacy leasing business which continues to yield positive cashflows.

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?

According to CITY A.M online marketplace Beauty Bay has recruited bankers to look at options including a sale, after previously eyeing a London listing. These include a full or partial sale, or snapping up other firms to further its expansion ambitions.  The beauty platform is now unlikely to resuscitate previous plans to go public.

Trade journal, the drinks business, reports that two drinks companies of vastly different sizes are planning to offer shares on the London Stock Exchange in the near future through initial public offerings (IPO), having turned down private equity buy-out offers.  BrewDog, the idiosyncratic craft brewer based at Ellon, north of Aberdeen, is expected to be valued at more than £2bln while the Kent-based iPro sports drink company will be worth a mere fraction of that. Brew Dog, which has been rocked by allegations of a “toxic” work culture, is rewarding salaried employees through a staff share issue and a profit share in its bars. The vastly smaller  iPro is said to be looking to raise £100m from a share issue after turning down bids by three private equity companies to sell a majority stake.

EnSilica, intends to join AIM. EnSilica is a designer and supplier of mixed signal Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). ASICs are integrated circuits or semiconductor chips developed for a particular use or product rather than for general purpose usage. ASICs help differentiate products through optimised hardware thereby making products smaller, faster, lower power and more secure and can provide novel functionality, improve supply chain security and protect products from being copied. The Company has expertise in designing complex mixed signal ASICs, which combine digital and analogue functions onto a single chip. Mkt Cap TBC. Due late May 2022.

Altona Rare Earths, the AQSE listed mining exploration company focused on the evaluation, acquisition and development of Rare Earth Elements mining projects in Africa, intends to join the Main Market. Admission to trading of the Company’s Ordinary Shares on the AQSE Growth Market will be cancelled simultaneously with Admission. It is also proposed that on Admission, the Company will change its EPIC from AQSE:ANR to REE.  The Company also seeks to raise funds to finance its current and future rare earths mining projects in Southern and Eastern Africa. Due May 2022.

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