Hybridan Small Cap Feast

A round up of the day’s news brought to you by the team at small-cap broker and advisor Hybridan.

Joiners: Poolbeg Pharma (POLB.L)* a clinical stage infectious disease pharmaceutical company with a capital light clinical model has joined AIM. Funds raised as part of Admission will be used primarily to fund the clinical trial costs associated with the development of the Company’s POLB 001 asset as a treatment for severe influenza and to acquire and develop new portfolio assets.  Raised £25m at 10p. Mkt Cap £50m. Oversubscribed fundraise which resulted in an increased raise from £20m to £25m despite some investor scale back.

Bradda Head Holdings (BHL.L) has joined AIM. Bradda Head, previously called Life Science Developments Limited and before that Copper Development Corporation, is a delisted company previously quoted on AIM. In January 2018 Bradda Head acquired Bradda Head Limited, a lithium focused exploration company established to develop a portfolio of USA based lithium projects. Raising £6.2m. Mkt Cap £16.1m. Due 19 July.

Revolution Beauty Group (REVB.L) a global mass beauty and personal care business which operates a multi brand, multi category strategy and sells its products both DTC via its e-commerce operations, and in both physical and digital retailers through wholesale relationships, has joined AIM. Capital to be raised £300m (£110.7m of which is for the Company and £189.3m of which is for the Selling Shareholders). Mtk Cap on admission of £495m.

Forward Partners Group (FWD.L) has joined AIM. The Group has made 65 equity investments in early stage, high growth British companies, to build a portfolio that has a net asset value of £103.0m as of 31 March 2021. Based on the Placing Price, the Mtk Cap on Admission will be approximately £134.6m. Raised £34.7m.

Acceler8 Ventures (AC8.L) has joined the Main Market (Standard). AC8 was established in 2021 to undertake one or more investment and / or acquisition opportunities of businesses operating within the UK or internationally across certain sectors.  These include gaming, media and entertainment, software and technology, industrials and business services. The Company raised £750k to support AC8’s initial M&A search and diligence activities, in pursuit of its first transaction. AC8 is led by David Williams as Non-Executive Chairman.  Giles Willits is also a Non-Executive Director.  Both have substantial experience in executing accelerated buy-and-build growth strategies.

Leavers: No Leavers Today.

Banquet Buffet

Arc Minerals 157p  £20.9m (ARC.L)

ARC announced the commencement of a diamond drill programme on its majority-controlled licenses in north-western Zambia. Diamond drilling activities are underway at the Fwiji Target Area  following further technical work and analysis from last year’s exploration drilling campaign. The programme will initially centre on a linear feature ~2km to the south of last year’s drilling at Fwiji where a coincident magnetic and soil anomaly has been identified. This year’s programme will also focus on the Cheyeza and Muswema Target areas where the drill target locations are to be finessed upon the completions of a high resolution airborne geophysical survey over these target areas.

Cornerstone FS 31.5p  £6.4m (CSFS.L)

Cornerstone FS plc, the cloud-based provider of international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services to SMEs, provides an update on trading for the six months ended 30 June 2021 ahead of announcing its unaudited interim results in September 2021. The Company was admitted to trading on AIM on 6 April 2021. As noted in its final results announcement on 8 June 2021, trading volumes have increased in the first half of 2021 following the contraction, particularly in the second half of 2020, due to the impact of COVID-19. As a result, the Group expects to report sequential revenue growth of 6% for the first half of 2021 over the second half of 2020 to approximately £837k (H2 2020: £792k). This represents a near-return to pre-pandemic levels (H1 2020: £872k). Looking ahead, with the increased momentum in trading volumes, the Board is confident of delivering revenue growth for full year 2021 compared with 2020. In addition, as the Group executes on its strategy of acquisitive growth together with an increased proportion of direct sales, the Board is confident of delivering further significant gross margin improvement in future periods.

ECR Minerals 1.65p  £16.2m (ECR.L)

The gold exploration and development company focused on Australia, announced a drilling update from the Creswick Gold project, in the Victoria Goldfields, Australia. The Project is 100%-owned by ECR’s wholly owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd (MGA). Diamond drilling along the Dimock Main Shales (DMS) trend has continued to delineate gold mineralisation along the strike zone in a southerly direction from the first drill hole at CSD001. To date six holes have been completed, four holes have been fully assayed, with final gold assays now received for holes (CSD001, CSD002, CSD003 and CSD004). Drill holes have tested near the centre and near the southern end of the tenement to gain a full overview of the prospectivity of the trend across the whole tenement. The drilling in the centre of the tenement (CSD003 & CSD004) tested a portion of the system with no historic mining. All holes drilled to date have hit multiple and significant zones of quartz and all holes with assays returned have intercepted gold, with the best results from CSD003 drilled where there were no historic workings. Assay results received include; 1m @ 4.78 g/t Au from hole (CSD002) and 0.95m @ 9.93 g/t and 0.95m @ 23.58 g/t Au both respectively from (CSD003). Diamond drilling has just been completed for holes CJD001 and CSD005, confirming structures hosting quartz, parallel to and within the Dimocks Main Shales, are persistent along strike to the south of CSD001 and CSD002. Assays results will be provided following receipt and interpretation.

Ideagen 270p  £681m (IDEA.L)

The specialist in compliance software for regulated industries, is pleased to announce two recent strategic acquisitions to considerably enhance the Group’s product offering and capabilities. On 16 July 2021, Ideagen completed the acquisition of Advanced Digital Systems Inc, trading as Mi-Co, for a cash consideration of £3.1m on completion. Mi-Co’s ARR is £0.9m. Based in Durham, North Carolina, USA, Mi-Co is a low- and no-code mobile application developer.  It currently supports c.150 customers operating in highly regulated industries including agriculture, government and utilities. As well as continuing to be sold on a stand-alone basis, Mi-Co’s technology will be deployed across the Ideagen portfolio. The acquisition significantly strengthens Ideagen’s mobile capabilities; enabling an enhanced customer experience and extended product functionality. On 9 July 2021, Ideagen completed the acquisition of OpsBase Limited, a UK-based health and safety compliance platform for a cash consideration on completion of £1.9m. The OpsBase software is technologically complete and boasts excellent functionality.  The acquisition offers an immediate extension to the Ideagen portfolio, opening up new market opportunities. The platform is at an early stage of commercialisation; revenues for the year ended November 2020 were £0.1m. Product roll out will be significantly accelerated under Ideagen’s ownership.

Jade Road Investments* 23p  £26.5m (JADE.L)

The London-quoted, pan-Asian diversified investment vehicle focused on providing shareholders with attractive uncorrelated, risk-adjusted long-term returns, announced an investment update, and confirms that the full SRK report dated March 2021 on Future Metal Holdings (FMHL or the Quarry) has been published on https:// jaderoadinvestments.com/home and will be published on https://futuremetalholdings.com in due course. Jade Road has an 85% shareholding in Future Metal Holdings Limited. Highlights: The CPR confirms a JORC Code Compliant Mineral Resources of the Zhuangpeng Mine of 35.95 million tonnes (Mt) with an average grade of 20.74% dolomite oxide (MgO) (Measured); 81.40Mt with an average grade of 20.48% MgO (Indicated); and 31.81Mt with an average grade of 20.61% MgO (Inferred). The Quarry has already obtained all necessary operational licences and permits. The CPR, incorporating the expanded (3Mt) production rate, estimates a net present value of the asset is RMB487.47m (c.USD75.5m) by using the discounted cash flow method with a 9% discount rate. The internal rate of return is 28.55%. Jade Road applied a further 17% discount to the independent valuation conducted by SRK and as of 31st of December 2020, the asset was valued at USD50.4m in the portfolio. The Quarry is currently in production at a rate of 300kt pa.

Napster Group 1.23p  £33.9m (NAPS.L)

The music company announced the appointment of Lansing (Lanse) Davis and Peter Read as Non-Executive Directors of the Company with immediate effect. In addition, Andy Botha has also today resigned from the Board to pursue his other commitments. Mr. Davis has spent nearly 20 years in the investment management sector, having commenced his career at Lord, Abbett & Co. LLC before founding his own asset management and advisory firm, Davis Capital Partners LLC in 2008. Lanse is currently the Managing Principal of Davis Capital Partners in addition to holding a number of advisory positions at US non-profit organisations and is the treasurer of the S&G Foundation a charitable organisation that raises funds for a variety of social issues such as education and the environment. Mr. Read qualified as a fellow of the ICAEW in 1979, beginning his career at KPMG where he worked for 37 years. Having started out in audit, he also specialised in due diligence and financial reporting. Mr Read became a partner in 1990, focusing on Shipping and Telecoms, Media, and Technology. In 1996 Mr Read became Head of the UK Shipping Practice and in 2003 he became Head of the UK TMT Practice.

Sareum Holdings* 7.15p  £238m (SAR.L)

Sareum have raised £1m at 7p through a company subscription directly with a high net worth individual. With this new subscription, the total funds raised from recent subscriptions and warrant exercises is over £3.5M. These new funds will allow the company both to advance SDC-1801 into clinical development in autoimmune diseases, including the immune overreaction to Covid-19 and other viral infections, and to progress the preclinical development of their second TYK2/JAK1 inhibitor SDC-1802 against cancers. 

Physiomics* 6.4p  £6.2m (PYC.L)

The consultancy using mathematical models to support the development of drug treatment regimens and personalised medicine solutions, announced that Dr Nathalie Dupuy has joined its technical team as a Biosimulation scientist. Nathalie holds a PhD in Neuroinformatics from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College, London. Nathalie has also completed courses in AI related disciplines including data science, machine learning and natural language processing. Dr Jim Millen, CEO, commented “As it expands, Physiomics continues to attract fantastic young talent. Nathalie will be a great addition to the team and help increase our capacity and capability to address our pipeline of project opportunities.”.

Semper Fortis Esports* 2.35p  £9.76m (AQSE:SEMP)

Semper has released two pieces of news today relating to their performance in competitions. A member of their Top Blokes team, Archie Pickthall, recently competed for Team Great Britain in their Rocket League roster as part of a team of 3 in the Intel World Open. Team GB finished in 3rd place. The Intel World Open is an international event held between national teams ahead of the 2020 Summer Olympics and is supported by the International Olympic Committee. In addition to this, the team have come 1st place in the European bracket of the Gamers Without Borders Event.  Gamers Without Borders is an invitational charity tournament and Semper will be donating their allocated prize money of $200,000 to UNICEF.

Thor Explorations 19p  £111.6m (THX.L)

Thor explorations has commenced the commissioning of its gold processing plant following the successful turning of the mills at its 100% owned Segilola Gold Project in Nigeria. Remaining work is focused primarily on the gold room, elution and electrowinning circuit, power connection, instrumentation and control installations. The Process Plant is being commissioned in phases, with commissioning having already started at the power plant. Commissioning of the SAG & Ball Mills and the crushing section will follow. Thereafter, commissioning will continue with the remaining areas of the Process Plant. The Company expects to pour its first gold from the Project before the end of July 2021.

What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?

Central Copper Resources, a company focused on delivering a high grade copper project into production and exploration of assets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in the Republic of Zambia to join AIM. By 2022, CCR intends to be ready to commence the project financing of its Mbamba Kilenda copper project. Timing and offer TBA

Spinnaker Acquisitions to join the Main Market (Standard).  A company formed for the purpose of undertaking an acquisition or acquisitions of a majority interest in a company, business or asset. Due 28 July.

South West Brands the multi-brand cannabidiol consumer goods company  intends to float on the Main Market (Standard). Raising funds to continue to develop its existing portfolio of brand IP and pursue its strategy of adding brand IP assets to the portfolio over the course of the first 24 months following Admission. The Company expects Admission to occur in July 2021. Timing and offer TBA.

Big Technologies to join AIM. Big Technologies plc provides products and services to the remote and personal monitoring industry under a number of brand and trading names, with ‘Buddi’ being the most well known and used in respect of activities within the core criminal justice market. The Company’s criminal justice solution involves proprietary monitoring software combined with modular monitoring hardware being used to accurately track the location of tag wearers. Alongside this, the Company also offers monitoring services solutions for its customers. Offer TBA. Due late July. 

GENinCode to join AIM, a UK-incorporated company engaged in the risk assessment, prediction and prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death worldwide accounting for approximately 18m deaths annually. Due 22 July. Raised £17m. Mkt Cap £42m. 

Zenova to join AIM. The Company, is the holder of intellectual property to underpin a suite of fire safety and temperature management products and technology applicable to industrial, commercial and residential markets. Capital to be raised on Admission £4.5m. Anticipated Mt Cap £17.74m. Due 22 July.

Microlise to join AIM. Microlise is a leading provider of transport management technology solutions, delivering a globally enabled SaaS platform that digitises the business processes of enterprise organisations running highly complex logistics operations. As at 31 December 2020, the Group had over 400 enterprise customers and over 500,000 vehicle subscriptions. Total capital to be raised on Admission: £61.2m. Primary funds raised for the Company: £18.6m. Secondary funds raised for existing shareholders: £42.6m. Anticipated market capitalisation on Admission: £156.5m. Due 22 July.

Lords Group Trading to join AIM. Lords Group Trading plc is a consolidator of specialist merchant businesses across the Southeast and Midlands, adding value to the supply of building materials through product expertise and next day delivery. £30m primary, £22m shareholder sale, Mkt Cap £150m.  Due 20 July.

Bridgepoint Group to float on the Premium Segment of the Main Market. Bridgepoint is the leader in middle market investing, with a global reach that leverages its strong pan-European footprint and Bridgepoint’s ability to deploy meaningful amounts of client capital across several well established strategies. Raising £300m. Timing TBA.

HydrogenOne Capital Growth to IPO on the Premium Segment of the Main Market. HGEN is targeting a raise of £250m. First London listed investment fund dedicated to clean hydrogen. Due by the end of July.

*A corporate client of Hybridan LLP

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