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AB Dynamics £16.00 £366.2m (ABDP.L)
The designer, manufacturer and supplier of advanced testing, simulation and measurement products to the global transport market, issues a trading update, to coincide with the Company’s Annual General Meeting taking place later today. The Board reports that performance over the first four months of FY 2023 has been in line with its expectations. The Group has a solid order book, providing good visibility into the second half of the year, and the integration of Ansible Motion is progressing as planned. Net cash at 31 December 2022 was £17.6m (31 December 2021: £27.4m, 31 August 2022: £29.2m), after payment of the initial £16.0m cash consideration for the acquisition of Ansible Motion in September 2022. Expectations for FY 2023 are unchanged.
Cambridge Cognition 121.5p £37.9m (COG.L)
The Company which develops and markets digital solutions to assess brain health, announces the acquisition of Winterlight Labs Inc, a leader in monitoring cognitive impairment through free-speech analysis. The total consideration for the Acquisition is £7m, comprising a cash payment of £3m and £4m in Cambridge Cognition shares. The cash consideration of £3m is being funded from the Company’s existing cash resources, which were approximately £8.3m as of 31 December 2022. For the year ended 31 December 2022, Winterlight generated revenue of £1m and reported a loss before tax of £2.1m. Winterlight’s gross assets are approximately £0.7m. Winterlight had a contracted order book of £2.5m as of 31 December 2022, with approximately 35% expected to be recognised as revenue in 2023.
Cornerstone Fs 7.25p £3.8m (CSFS.L)
The cloud-based provider of international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services to SMEs, provides an unaudited update on trading for the year ended 31 December 2022. As noted in the trading update announcement on 17 November 2022, the Group expected total revenue for 2022 of £4.3m. The Group now expects to report total revenue for 2022 of approximately £4.8m, representing 109% growth over 2021 and being 12% ahead of market expectations. The strong trading at the end of the year was across the Group’s business. Accordingly, the growth in revenue for the year continues to be driven by clients that the Group serves directly, which is expected to account for approximately 78% of total revenue (2021: 56%) , and gross margin is expected to improve to approximately 61% for 2022 compared with 52% for 2021.
Deltic Energy 2.85p £53.1m (DELT.L)
The natural resources investing company with a high impact exploration and appraisal portfolio focused on the Southern and Central North Sea, announces that Shell, the Operator of exploration well 41/05a-2 on Licence P2252 (Shell 65%, Deltic 30%, ONE-Dyas 5% Working Interests), in the Southern North Sea has reported that gas has been encountered in the reservoir and has recommended to the Joint Venture (JV) that a full well testing programme be undertaken. The JV has endorsed the Operator’s recommendation to undertake a full well test to evaluate the commerciality of the Pensacola prospect and update the geological model. Deltic will provide a drilling update announcement in respect of Pensacola on completion of well testing which is expected to take approximately 30 days.
Kibo Energy* 0.12p £3.6m (KIBO.L)
The renewable-energy-focused development company announces the appointment of Ajay Saldanha as an independent non-executive director to its Board of Directors with immediate effect. Ajay Dominic Saldanha is an experienced banking and investment professional with more than 20 years of experience in the power, energy and utilities sector. Furthermore, KIBO announces the appointment of Beaumont Cornish Limited as the Company’s Nominated Adviser with immediate effect. Accordingly, the Company will resume trading on AIM from 7.30am today. With regard to the bridge loan facility announced on 16 February 2022, the Company has subsequently agreed with the Institutional Investor to extend the repayment date of said Facility to the 28 April 2023. As part of this agreement, the Company has provided the Institutional Investor with the right to trade shares held by it in Mast Energy Developments Plc up to the value of £250k the proceeds of which would be set off against the total amount owed under the Facility, being approximately £1.1m.
Nicholas £10.83 £394.8m (NICL.L)
The diversified soft drinks Group, announces the appointment of Elizabeth (Liz) McMeikan as the Company’s next Non-Executive Chair. Elizabeth will initially join the Group as a Non-Executive Director on 1st February 2023 before becoming Non-Executive Chair on 26th April 2023; that being the date of Nichols plc’s 2023 Annual General Meeting. As announced on 27 April 2022, John Nichols stated his intention to retire as Non-Executive Chairman once a suitable replacement had been identified and appointed. He will therefore step down from the role following the Group’s 2023 AGM. Elizabeth brings a wealth of consumer-focused public and private company experience to the Board from a number of non-executive board roles, further to an executive career spent with Colgate Palmolive and Tesco.
Physiomics* 4.2p £4.1m (PYC.L)
The consultancy using mathematical models to support the development of drug treatment regimens and personalised medicine solutions, announces that it has entered into a further contract with its existing client Cancer Research UK. This represents the second such directly contracted project following the award completion last month of a contract for PKPD (pharmacodynamics, what the drug does to the body) modelling relating to the Cancer Research UK-sponsored clinical trial of AL ETA-001, a CAR-T cell engager candidate for the treatment of blood cancers developed by Aleta Biotherapeutics. The project is expected to be completed during Q1 2023.
WANdisco 917.5p £614.2m (WAND.L)
The data activation platform, announces a trading update for the 12 months ended 31 December 2022. Unaudited revenues are expected to be no less than $24m, growth of 229% year on year (FY21: $7.3m). Bookings in FY22 grew 967% to $127m (FY21: $11.9m). This record level was driven by significant progress in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) industry vertical with a majority of contract wins under the Group’s commit-to-consume revenue model. The Company ended the period with cash of approximately $19m and $44m in trade receivables as at 31 December 2022. Taken together with a Remaining Performance Obligations of $110m this should see the Company through to profitability.
Warpaint London 187.5p £143.9m (W7L.L)
The specialist supplier of colour cosmetics and owner of the W7 and Technic brands is pleased to announce a trading update for the year ended 31 December 2022. The Company reports sales for the full year have exceeded previous expectations and are expected to be approximately £64m. In addition, in its full year results, the Group expects to report adjusted EBITDA of approximately £11.8m (2021: £7.6m) and adjusted profit before tax of approximately £10m (2021: £6.9m), both of which are ahead of current market expectations and the board’s previous guidance for adjusted profit before tax. Cash balances as at 31 December 2022 totalling £5.8m (31 December 2021: £4.1m) and no debt.
Wishbone Gold 4.9p £10m (WSBN.L)
The gold and precious metals exploration company announces that it has acquired 100% of tenement application E45/ 6456 (Cottesloe East) covering 19 blocks (62km2) in the Paterson Range, Western Australia. The Cottesloe East tenement is contiguous to the Cottesloe Project (E45/4543) which is already owned by Wishbone, and brings the total project area to 50 blocks covering an area of 165km2. This has been acquired by staking the ground for a total cost of A$50k. Continued internal assessment of the Cottesloe prospect led to examination of the prospectivity of Cottesloe East. Wishbone Gold will combine the data sets from both prospects and work towards an expanded exploration program, subject to Heritage consents. Thus far the analysis suggests that the established anomalies on Cottesloe extend into Cottesloe East.
What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Celsius Resources intends to join AIM. Currently ASX listed, Celsius is a natural resources exploration and development company principally seeking to explore and develop potential world-class copper-gold assets in the Philippines and a cobalt asset in Namibia. Amount planning to raise and anticipated market cap TBC. Expected late January 2023.
Conviction Life Sciences, a newly established closed-ended investment company managed by Plain English Finance Limited, is seeking to list on Premium Segment of the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange, to invest in a conviction portfolio of life sciences and medical technology businesses, primarily in the UK, Europe and Australasia. The Company will invest in both Publicly Traded and Private companies – c. 70% and c. 20% of the total portfolio value respectively. The Company will target an annualised Total NAV Return of 20% over the long-term. Targeting to raise c.£100m. Delayed to 3rd February 2023.
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