Hybridan Small Cap Feast

Joiners: No joiners today.

Leavers: No leavers today.

Banquet Buffet

Aeorema Communications  77p  £7.1m (AEO.L)

The live events agency announces a trading update. The Company expects to report FY 2022 revenue (subject to audit) of £12.2m (vs. guidance of £11.8m for the year; £5.09m for FY 2021) and profits before tax of no less than £830k (vs. guidance of £700k; a loss of £159k for FY 2021). The revenue increase primarily comes from Cannes Lions (June 2022), where Aeorema had its largest ever presence. In addition, Aeorema announce that it has opened a new office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in reflection of its s increased activity in Europe. This represents the Company’s third office, following the opening of the New York office in September 2021.

Anglo Asian Mining  87p  £99.4m (AAZ.L)

The gold, copper and silver producer primarily focused in Azerbaijan, announces the acquisition of exploration data, relating to Garadagh and Xarxar contract areas, and associated studies and reports from AzerGold. The Company has agreed to pay US$3.3m for the data for Garadagh and US$0.7m for Xarxar. 25% of the fees (US$1m) is payable immediately, with the further 75% (US$3m) payable after 3 years, or if earlier, the balance of the purchase price for each deposit, on the approval of the Company’s development and production programme for the deposit in accordance with the Company’s Production Sharing Agreement. The cost of the data will be added to the operating and capital costs of the Contract Areas and be deductible in calculating profit production. In addition to this data acquisition, initial exploration has commenced at the Xarxar deposit.

Bens Creek  31.8p  £112.5m (BEN.L)

The owner of a metallurgical coal mine in North America supplying the steel industry, announces that it has raised £6m (before expenses) with certain existing institutional and new investors, by way of a placing of 9,999,998 new Ordinary Shares at the Issue Price of 30p and a Subscription for an aggregate of 10,000,002 new Ordinary Shares at the Issue Price. The Issue Price represents a discount of 10.4% to the closing mid-market share price on 17 August 2022. The net proceeds from this Placing and Subscription will enable the transition from a contractor model and become an owner of its own rolling stock of heavy equipment.

DXS International*  10p  £4.8m (AQSE:DXS)

The healthcare information and digital clinical decision support systems provider, announces that it has entered into a Licence and Services Agreement with AI company, Deontics in order to improve clinical pathway implementation in Primary Care. Deontics’ unique clinical decision engine is the only solution on the market that blends clinical process and complex reasoning and knowledge representation. Integrating the Deontics engine into the DXS platform will boost the capabilities of DXS, improve the working lives of primary care staff, GPs and nurses and will ultimately improve patient outcomes.

 Empire Metals 1.1p  £4.8m (EEE.L)

The resource exploration and development company, announces the results of the airborne magnetic survey carried out in June 2022 at the Pitfield Copper-Gold Project in Western Australia. The highly magnetic anomaly seen from the airborne survey indicates potential for the presence of magnetite. The airborne magnetic survey has confirmed that the historical geochemical sampling closely aligns with a significant magnetic anomaly, previously identified by CRA. The airborne electro-magnetic survey results are expected in the next few weeks.

Intelligent Ultrasound Group  13p  £35.2m (IUG.L)

The ultrasound company specialising in artificial intelligence (AI) software and simulation, announces its unaudited half year results to 30 June 2022. Revenue grew 62% to £5.9m (H1 2021: £3.6m), while operating loss reduced to £1.3m (H1 2021: £2.3m). Direct sales in the UK and USA increased by over 80% to £5.3m (H1 2021: £2.8m), helped by a high number of one-off orders from a NHS training initiative in Q1. However, the zero-covid policy in China negatively impacted sales to rest of the world. The Company remains confident that it will meet the market expectations of £10m revenue for FY2022.

LifeSafe  54.5p  £12m (LIFS.L)

The fire safety technology business announces that it has been granted a patent in the UK for its eco-friendly fire extinguishing fluid known as FER1000. The patent, GB2561610B, was granted with effect from 17 August 2022 on publication in the UK Intellectual Property Office’s Patents Journal. The FER1000 extinguishing fluid is at the centre of the company’s product range and has been developed by LifeSafe to extinguish five different types of fire: electrical, paper, textiles, cooking oil, and petrol and diesel.

Proteome Sciences  3.7p  £11.1m (PRM.L)

The specialist provider of contract proteomics services announces that Abdelghani Omari has been appointed as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer. He will take up the position on September 1st, 2022 and will become a director of the Company. Abdel have over 20 years experience and joins from Paion AG, a listed speciality pharmaceutical company. As part of Mr Omari’s remuneration package, three months after his appointment he will be granted 4,000,000 options under the Company’s share option scheme.

Westminster Group  1.4p  £4.5m (WSG.L)

The supplier of managed services and technology-based security solutions, announces its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2022. Group revenues were up 13% from H1 2021 to £3.9 m (H1 2021: £3.5m) and gross margin increased to 51% (2021: 45%). An operating Loss of £0.78m was reported (H1 2021: Loss £0.93m), with a loss per share of 0.24p (H1 2021: Loss 0.32p). H1 2022 has performed largely to expectation, improving on H1 2021 as the business recovers from the pandemic. The Company remains optimistic to meet 2022 market expectations.

Zytronic  130p  £13.2m (ZYT.L)

The specialist manufacturer of touch sensors, provides a trading update ahead of its 2022 fiscal year end on 30 September 2022. Reported revenues for FY22 are likely to be in the region of 5% higher than £11.7m for FY21. Profitability for the year is currently expected to be higher than the pre-tax level for FY21. The business is committing further resources to business development and project progression activities, after a 2 year hiatus. However, the availability and cost of both raw materials and electronic components remains challenging and this has resulted in lower than anticipated level of order intake. Management remains confident in the longer-term growth prospects for the Group.

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?

Unigel Group, intends to join the Aquis Growth Market.  Unigel Group is a pioneer in the field of thixotropic gels for the fibre optic cable industry. The Company is also a supplier of laminated steel tapes to the fibre optic cable industry in the US. Thixotropic gels and laminated steel tapes are essential components to the rapidly growing global fibre optic cable market. The Group exports to over 40 countries and is a key supplier to almost every leading fibre optic cable manufacturer worldwide and is the industry’s only organisation with multiple manufacturing facilities spread across 3 continents. The Company acts as the holding company for its wholly-owned operating subsidiary, Unitape Limited and its 60% owned operating subsidiary, Unigel (UK) Limited. Delayed, timing TBC.

Georgina Energy, an early-stage resource company with a strategy of actively pursuing the exploration, commercial development and monetisation of helium, hydrogen and hydrocarbon interests located in the Amadeus and Officer Basins in Northern and Western Australia intends to join AIM. Georgina Energy has two principal onshore interests. The first, the Mount Winter Prospect is located in the Amadeus Basin in Northern Australia, which the Company has a right to earn an initial 75% interest. The second interest, the Hussar Prospect is 100% owned by the Company and is located in the Officer Basin in Western Australia. Expected late September.

Mise en Place**

The Federal Reserve’s minutes posted last night suggest that they fear overtightening policy while attempting to tamp down inflation. Spread betting and CFD trading provider CMC Market’s Chief Market Analyst Michael Hewson commented that:

“The key takeaway from these minutes would appear to show that there is little inclination on the part of anyone on the FOMC to even look at the possibility of rate cuts, and chime with more recent comments from Fed officials which suggest that we could see at least another 1.5% in rate rises by year end, which would push the Fed Funds rate at 3.75-4% by year end.”

*A corporate client of Hybridan LLP

** Content not provided by Hybridan LLP

This document has been prepared by Hybridan LLP for information purposes only and should not be construed in any circumstances as an offer to sell or solicitation of any offer to buy any security or other financial instrument, nor shall it, or the fact of its distribution, form the basis of, or be relied upon in connection with, any contract relating to such action. This document has no regard for the specific investment objectives, financial situation or needs of any specific entity and is not a personal recommendation to anyone. Recipients should make their own investment decisions based upon their own financial objectives and financial resources and, if any doubt, should seek advice from an investment advisor. The information contained in this document is based on materials and sources that are believed to be reliable; however, they have not been independently verified and are not guaranteed as being accurate. This document is not intended to be a complete statement or summary of any securities, markets, reports or developments referred to herein. No representation or warranty, either express or implied, is made or accepted by Hybridan LLP, its members, directors, officers, employees, agents or associated undertakings in relation to the accuracy, completeness or reliability of the information in this document nor should it be relied upon as such. Any and all opinions expressed are current opinions as of the date appearing on this document only. Any and all opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and Hybridan LLP is under no obligation to update the information contained herein. To the fullest extent permitted by law, none of Hybridan LLP, its members, directors, officers, employees, agents or associated undertakings shall have any liability whatsoever for any direct or indirect or consequential loss or damage (including lost profits) arising in any way from use of all or any part of the information in this document. This document is sent to you as market commentary only. As market commentary this document does not constitute any of (i) investment research and financial analysis or other forms of general recommendation relating to transactions in financial instruments for the purposes of the UK retained version of section B of annex I to Directive 2014/65/EU (“MIFID II Directive”); or (ii) investment research as defined in the UK retained version of article 36(1) of Commission Delegated Regulation 2017/565/EU made pursuant to the MIFID II Directive; or (iii) non-independent research (as such term is defined in the Financial Conduct Authority’s Conduct of Business Sourcebook).