Hybridan Small Cap Feast

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AEX Gold 43.5p  £79.1m (AEXG.L)

The independent mining company with an unrivalled land package of gold and strategic mineral assets covering an area of 4,090km2 in Southern Greenland, announced the appointment of Liane Kelly as Senior Independent Director with immediate effect. An exploration geophysicist by background, Liane was appointed as an Independent Director in August 2021 and has brought a wealth of ESG experience to the Board. Liane, who has considerable experience in the mining sector, has enjoyed a successful career advising companies on sustainability and CSR initiatives in recent years. In particular, Liane specialises in advising companies on community engagement and social impact, both of which are vital for AEX as the Corporation continues to build on its strong engagement with its Greenlandic stakeholders.

Bidstack 2.95p  £27.5m (BIDS.L)

The in-game brand activation platform, announced a new and exclusive partnership with Hollywood Story: Fashion Star, a fashion and lifestyle game developed by Nanobit. Hollywood Story: Fashion Star is a role-playing casual mobile game that allows players to live their movie star dream and experience the life of a celebrity. During the game, players can shoot in films, date celebrities and even star in high profile magazines. The popular role-playing game offers an immersive story-telling experience and is available on iOS and Android to players around the world. Nanobit is an award-winning global mobile game development studio that was founded in 2008 in Zagreb, Croatia. It has a team of more than 150 people and has seen more than 175m downloads across its portfolio of games since it first launched. The new partnership will see Bidstack integrate ads seamlessly into the game’s cityscape environments, enabling Nanobit to deliver non-intrusive and relevant brand experiences to its growing audience, enhancing the authenticity of the game. Mobile gaming continues to boom, and this growth is expected to continue. Data from Iron Source shows that mobile gaming is expected to reach $272b by 2030, whilst the mobile gaming market generated $93.2b in 2021 and almost 83b game downloads.

Breedon Group 80.3p  £1,357m (BREE.L)

The vertically-integrated construction materials group in Great Britain and Ireland, released a trading update in advance of its Annual General Meeting to be held at 2:00 pm today. The Group has started the year well with order intake and volumes following usual seasonal patterns through the first three months of 2022. End markets remain supportive, leading to reported and like-for-like revenue growth of 16% over the first quarter of 2021. Acceptance of rising input costs, and the increasingly dynamic price environment across all major product groups, has enabled full cost recovery through the quarter and is encouraging. 37.5% associate, BEAR Scotland, has retained responsibility for Scotland’s North West trunk roads for at least another eight years, maintaining supply relationships and long term visibility for the Scottish surfacing business.

Corcel  1.47p  £6.5m (CRCL.L)

The natural resource exploration and development company with interests in battery metals and flexible energy generation and storage, announced signature of a Heads of Terms with a large-scale UK investment fund with a view to funding its current and future UK energy storage and generation projects. The Heads includes the award of an option for a direct investment by the same fund in Corcel’s UK subsidiary which holds the portfolio of UK based energy generation and storage projects. The Company announced signature of a Heads of Terms defining a partnership with Altana Social Impact Partnership (ASIP) to jointly fund and develop Corcel’s UK energy storage and generation project pipeline, which currently includes a mix of battery energy storage and transitional energy generation projects at various stages of development.  ASIP is a large UK based investment fund which invests across a range of asset classes with a social and ethical agenda.  Whilst the Corcel and ASIP partnership originated from the funding process for the two 50MW gas peaker projects at Avonmouth and Tring Road, the envisioned partnership is designed to be broader, potentially including multiple battery storage sites across the UK alongside other projects. Currently, discussions between Corcel, ASIP and the landlord at Avonmouth regarding exclusivity rights are continuing and due diligence is underway, the Company cautions that there can be no certainty at present that Corcel’s rights to Avonmouth will be formally extended.

Duke Royalty 40.75p  £146.2m (DUKE.L)

Duke Royalty, a provider of alternative capital solutions to a diversified range of profitable and long-established businesses in Europe and North America, announced a follow-on investment of £3.1m into existing royalty partner, InTec Business Solutions Limited to fund its latest acquisition. InTec is an investment holding company created to execute a buy and build strategy of synergistic companies within the I.T. managed services sector in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Duke’s investment will facilitate InTec’s acquisition of Astec Computing (UK), a profitable I.T. managed services business with a 30 year trading history. The financing increases Duke’s total investment into InTec to £17.1m. The terms are the same as Duke’s previous follow-on investment into InTec, including the normal 6% annual revenue adjustment factor. The acquisition fortifies a key existing competency for Intec, in its expertise of Microsoft technologies, as well as adding to InTec’s growing roster of education customers.

Focusrite 1,045p  £613m (TUNE.L)

The global music and audio products company supplying hardware and software used by professional and amateur musicians and the entertainment industry is delighted to announced that its subsidiary, Focusrite Audio Engineering (FAEL), has again been recognised for its excellence winning the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International trade, announced in Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee year. Now in its 56th year, the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious business awards in the country with winning businesses able to use the esteemed Queen’s Awards Emblem for the next five years. This is the fifth Queen’s Award to be received by the company and the third time acknowledging the outstanding and sustained growth of their international sales.  FAEL has previously won the Queen’s Award for Innovation (2008, 2018) and the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade (2012, 2016). Another Focusrite subsidiary, Martin Audio Ltd, previously won the Queen’s Award for Innovation (2021) for its Wavefront Precision optimised line arrays.

Libertine Holdings 27.2p  £37.8m (LIB.L)

The developer of clean, highly efficient and fuel-flexible Linear Generator products, updated on trading for the year ended 31 March 2022 ahead of the announcement of its full year results. Delivered £3m of commercial and grant income contract milestones in the financial period. MAHLE Powertrain internal combustion systems design and manufacture has been completed and is now ready for planned combustion testing from Q1 of FY2022/23. Awarded additional grant funding contract to support further development with MAHLE Powertrain, including fuel system adaptations to demonstrate Hydrogen and Compressed Natural Gas fuel flexibility in heavy duty hybrid powertrains. Award of London Stock Exchange’s Green Economy Mark, recognising our contribution to the transition to Net Zero and the essential role of our technology in the decarbonisation of ‘hard to electrify’ transport applications. Funds raised at IPO utilised to continue strengthening of team with appointment of additional Engineering and Technology development personnel. £6.7m of cash reserves at period end.

Merit Group 47.5p  £10.7m (MRIT.L)

The data and intelligence business, provides a trading update for the year ending 31 March 2022. The Group traded ahead of market expectations in the year. Revenues for the year ending 31 March 2022 were over 10% up year on year, contributing to adjusted EBITDA being ahead of market expectations at around £2.8m (FY22 £2.0m). Stronger trading contributed to the Group finishing the year with net debt also better than market expectations at £2.2m (pre lease liabilities). In April 2021 the Group changed its name from Dods Group to Merit Group to signal its intention to focus on the business intelligence sector through its technology enabled data and intelligence business streams. The Group is a leading provider of UK and European political intelligence to a subscriber base of c.1000 blue chip clients. Through its Merit Data & Technology division, based in Chennai, India, the Group also provides large volume data capture and analysis using its proprietary technology and skilled workforce. Both these parts of the Group benefit from very high levels of recurring revenue, with the political intelligence product sold as a long term subscription service. The Board is encouraged by the improvement in its revenue during the year and expects to build on this during the year ending 31 March 2023. The global implications of the war in Ukraine and ongoing inflationary pressures across the world economy are risk factors faced by all. 

Ten Lifestyle Group 64.25p  £53.8m (TENG.L)

The technology-enabled, global concierge platform for the world’s wealthy and mass affluent, has been engaged by a corporate client, with whom Ten has an existing Large contract, to support its global digital strategy to enhance customer experience and drive greater efficiencies. The paid-for project involves Ten’s technology, product and content teams working to further develop Ten’s proprietary platform and content, under the client’s brand, to be used by their valued customers. Much of Ten’s digital services are already integrated into the client’s own customer-facing platform and this project further strengthens Ten’s position as the client’s trusted concierge technology partner. The fee for this project is the equivalent of a Medium contract and is incorporated within the Group’s existing growth plan.

Tissue Regenix 0.5p  £35.5m (TRX.L)

The regenerative medical devices company, announces that a podium presentation on the clinical experience with the Company’s OrthoPure®XT, a novel xenograft biologic scaffold for certain anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction procedures, will be presented at the 20th ESSKA (European Society for Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy) Congress in Paris, France. At the conference, clinician Mr. Neil Hunt, the principal investigator for the study, will be presenting clinical results on the device’s clinical safety and performance from a recently completed long-term prospective study. OrthoPure®XT was awarded a CE Mark in June 2020 for revision of ACL reconstruction procedures and reconstruction of other knee ligaments, including multiligament and primary procedures when the autograft is unacceptable. Mr. Neil Hunt is a consultant knee surgeon at York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, specialising in all aspects of knee surgery. He will be presenting data on Tissue Regenix’s OrthoPure®XT ligament reconstruction implant which conclude that patients undergoing primary ACL reconstruction with this implant showed appropriate clinical safety and clinical performance at 48 months following treatment. These outcomes are in line with clinical expectations following primary ACL reconstruction and they indicate that OrthoPure®XT might provide an alternative graft choice for ACL reconstruction and other ligament reconstructions. Further studies are planned to evaluate this.

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?

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. Timing TBC

According to Proactive Investors, Bridgepoint  is said to preparing to list Burger King UK on the London Stock Exchange as early as this spring. A valuation of £600m is expected.

Lift Global Ventures plc to join AQSE Growth Market. The Company’s investment strategy is to operate as an enterprise company seeking acquisition or investment opportunities within the financial media and technology industries. Within these broad industries, areas of focus may include: Financial news websites and other forms of “new media”, Investment research providers, Financial PR, IR, design and marketing agencies, Production studios and visual content providers and Technology platforms which facilitate capital raising and/or lending.  Mkt Cap and Capital to be raised TBC, expected 29 April.

Shellraise plc, to join AQSE Growth Market. The Company will focus on identifying investment opportunities in companies operating in the viticulture sector which require funding to increase output. Mkt Cap and Capital to be raised TBC, delayed possibly until May.

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