A round up of the day’s news brought to you by the team at small-cap broker and advisor Hybridan.
Joiners: Big Technologies (BIG.L) has joined 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. £16.1m via a placing of new ordinary shares. £185.6m via a sale of existing ordinary shares. Mkt Cap on admission based on an issue price of 200 pence of approximately £ 577m
Spinnaker Acquisitions (SPAQ.L) has joined 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. Raised £2.1m.
Sportech (SPO.L), the international betting technology business, has joined AIM from the Main Market.
Leavers: Proactis has left AIM following a takeover.
Banquet Buffet
Angle 113.5p £265.8m (AGL.L)
The liquid biopsy company, has agreed a pharma services contract with another new customer for its recently established pharma services business. ANGLE has been selected to develop immunofluorescence (IF) assays using its Parsortix® system to detect two specific protein markers expressed by circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and implicated in DNA damage repair (DDR), an increasing area of focus for oncology drug development. The new customer is a well-funded clinical stage development company with established commercialisation agreements with multiple global pharma companies. As part of the contract, ANGLE will develop the two assays to detect the target proteins in four hard-to-treat cancers: triple negative breast cancer, prostate cancer (including metastatic and/or castration resistant), ovarian cancer (including high grade) and pancreatic cancer. The assays will be developed in ANGLE’s UK R&D facility before being validated in ANGLE’s clinical laboratories. The first phase of work agreed covers the initial assay development and validation contract generating revenues of c. US$ 400k over a 12 month period. Assuming a successful outcome, the customer expects the assays to be utilised in a clinical trial with study sites in the United States and Europe, planned to commence in H2 2022.
Caledonia Mining 925p £102.6m (CMCL.L)
Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc has today published its 2020 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, which covers the reporting period 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020.This report is focused on Caledonia’s only operating project, the Blanket Mine in Zimbabwe. The report is available on the Company’s website at: www.caledoniamining.com/investors/esg-report/ Steve Curtis, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “I am pleased to present this inaugural ESG Report which constitutes our first formal communication on Caledonia’s approach to ESG topics. In the report we focus on five key pillars which define our strategy. We believe this inaugural report is an important step in providing an update on our performance in this vital area of the business and will therefore endeavour to continue to develop our ESG communications.”
Challenger Energy 1.9p £15m (CEG.L)
The Caribbean and Atlantic margin focused oil and gas company, with production, appraisal, development and exploration assets across the region, provides the following update in relation to production testing of the Saffron-2 appraisal well. As previously advised, the Saffron-2 appraisal well (Challenger Energy 100% operating interest) was successfully drilled to a depth of 4,567ft encountering similar Upper, Middle and Lower Cruse reservoirs to those encountered by the Saffron-1 exploration well. Since the last announcement of 14 July 2021, the drilling rig has been fully demobilised, to be replaced at site by a Challenger Energy workover rig along with production tanks and major production equipment. Following inspection and subsequent formal approval of both the well completion and production facilities by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries (MEEI), approximately 130ft of potential reservoir sands in the Lower Cruse sections of the well was perforated, to enable production testing from these zones to commence. Currently drilling materials and fluids are being recovered from the well, which is expected to continue for several days. Once the well has been fully “cleaned-up”, pressures, oil and fluid types, and production rates from the Lower Cruse zones of the well can be ascertained – an important part of the process as this reservoir has not previously been tested/ produced. Thereafter, the other 200ft of net pay identified in the Upper and Middle Cruse zones will be perforated and tested, to give a full assessment of the well’s production potential. Further announcements will be made as appropriate.
Crossword Cybersecurity* 33p £19.14m (CCS.L)
The technology commercialisation company focused on cyber security and risk management, is pleased to announce it has undertaken an oversubscribed fundraising by Hybridan LLP of approximately £5.0m. Crossword has agreed, subject to contract and the placing being complete with the admission of the placing shares to AIM by 3 August 2021, to pay a total consideration of up to £1.8m for the threat intelligence and monitoring company, of which £1.35m is unconditional and £0.45m conditional on performance. Additionally, the Company intends to apply the proceeds of the fundraising to increase sales and marketing resource, for product development and support and for general working capital purposes. This pending acquisition will be Crossword’s second acquisition in 2021. Verifiable Credentials Limited was acquired in May 2021 and its product, Identiproof, increased Crossword’s software product portfolio to three. Crossword is in discussions with several commercial businesses on how they might use the identiproof platform to issue verifiable digital certificates, as there is a shift from physical certificates to digital credentials across sectors ranging from digital ticket sales (festivals, concerts, exhibitions), insurance, compliance certificates (standards, accreditations), education and many more. The successful rollout of Rizikon to membership bodies, including to members of the Chartered Institute of Information Security, has resulted in more than 300 users of Rizikon assessing over 3,750 suppliers. With membership body agreements recently signed, including with the ICAEW and others imminent, Crossword is targeting over 1,000 users of Rizikon by end 2022. H2 2021 will see Crossword establishing its subsidiary in Oman as its Gulf region headquarters.
Empire Metals 2.45p £8.25m (EEE.L)
Results of the third phase of reverse circulation and infill diamond drilling at the Eclipse Gold Project, located 55km north-east of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. This has delivered encouraging results and supports the scaling of the Project’s mineralised footprint. The RC drilling has confirmed the existence of several parallel veins in addition to the main Eclipse vein and the diamond drilling has replicated intercepts from previous RC drilling as well as providing an invaluable insight into the nature of the mineralisation and the alteration zones. Targeted RC drilling with respect to a twin set of historical workings located SW of Eclipse has proved favourable and has identified a mineralised lode running sub-parallel to the Eclipse vein, referred to as ‘Twin Shafts’. The drilling has confirmed the different stockwork style of near-surface mineralisation in the vicinity of the Jack’s Dream old workings, which is breccia in style and has a different orientation to Eclipse/Twin Shafts. This indicates both increased complexity and possibly an increased duration of the gold system. Significant RC drilling intercepts include: 5m @ 3.54 g/t Au from 126m downhole at Jack’s Dream. 6m @ 2.39 g/t Au from 50m downhole at Jack’s Dream. 4m @ 4.78 g/t Au from 66m downhole at Twin Shaft. 2m @ 3.65 g/t Au from 53m downhole at Eclipse. 1m @ 4.08 g/t Au from surface at Eclipse.
Good Energy 329p £54.8m (GOOD.L)
The 100% renewable electricity supplier and innovative energy services provider, announced that GeniePoint and char.gy are the latest charge point operators to join Zap-Pay, the simple way to pay for EV charging across networks from within the Zap-Map app. Zap-Map currently has over 20k registered users, and over 95% of the UK’s public points on its network, with over 75% of the UK’s EV drivers having downloaded Zap-Map. There are now over 500k plug-in cars on UK roads and sales have skyrocketed by over 170% in the year to date versus 2020, including over 54k sales of pure electric vehicles. Launched last year with a mission to sign up all the key charge point networks across the UK, Zap-Pay is the simple way to pay for EV charging across networks from within the Zap-Map app. The Zap-Pay service also includes a 24/7 multi-lingual helpdesk for all payment-related issues, which is provided by EVA Global – an international, leading managed services provider, specialised in the electric mobility industry.
President Energy 2.13p £43.25m (PPC.L)
The upstream oil and gas company with a diverse portfolio of production and exploration assets focused primarily in Argentina, confirms that further to the announcement of 20 November 2019 Compania General De Combustibles S.A. has completed the final quarterly instalment of its share subscription programme. CGC has invested a further sum of US$165k approximately £119,947.66 at an exchange rate of GBP1.3756 : 1 USD being the spot rate on the day prior to 24 July 2021, the effective date of the investment.
Smart Metering Systems 910.5p £1,028m (SMS.L)
The fully integrated energy infrastructure company owning and managing meter assets, energy data, grid-scale batteries and other carbon reduction (“CaRe”) assets, provides a trading update for the six months to 30 June 2021. Revenue and underlying profit in line with the Board’s expectations. Index Linked Annual Recurring Revenue grew 9.3% to £84.2m (31 December 2020: £77.0m). Total meter and data assets increased to 4.0m (31 December 2020: 3.8m), net increase in contracted smart meter order pipeline to c.2.35m (31 December 2020: c2.0m), Strong recovery in smart meter installation rates, over 30,000 meters installed in June, c.20% increase on pre-COVID-19 run rate. 470MW grid scale battery pipeline: additional 100MW acquired taking the total to 190MW (31 December 2020: 90MW), of which 90MW are under construction and 100MW to begin construction by Q4 2021, remaining 280MW under exclusivity. Continued focus on sustainability, our corporate social responsibility and strong governance. FY 2021 underlying profitability remains in line with the Board’s expectations.
Tracsis 982p £288m (TRCS.L)
The provider of software, hardware, data analytics/GIS and services for the rail, traffic data and wider transport industries, has been awarded a new multi-year significant contract in the UK for its RailHub software product suite. This contract will double RailHub’s user base to over 30k individuals, reflecting the growing momentum in UK rail’s shift to digital, and underpins our confidence in the future of the RailHub product with both rail infrastructure providers and maintainers. “As a result of this large enterprise licence win, ongoing growth in Rail Technology & Services and Data Analytics/GIS and a post Covid recovery in business activity levels in our Traffic Data and Events business units, we are now expecting full year EBITDA for the Group to exceed market expectations.”
Zephyr Energy 5.9p £72.2m (ZPHR.L)
Zephyr provided an update on the State 16-2LN-CC drilling operations as well as to announce an increase in its operated land position through the acquisition of an additional 12,260 acres in the Paradox Basin, Utah, U.S. State 16-2LN-CC drilling update: Drilling operations have proceeded in line with Company expectations. At present, the well has been drilled to a total depth of 10,100 feet and has successfully landed in the Cane Creek reservoir at an approximate 85 degree angle. The objective of the next phase of drilling is to safely and successfully drill approximately 5,000 feet of horizontal lateral to intersect with the open natural fracture systems which are believed to exist across this portion of the Cane Creek reservoir. Acquisition of additional acreage in the Paradox Basin: Zephyr is also announced an agreement to increase its land position in the Paradox Basin through the targeted acquisition of an additional 12,260 leased acres deemed by the Company to be prospective for mid- to long-term development.
What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Quantum Exponential Limited, a company formed to identify investment opportunities in the quantum technology sector, to apply for admission of its Ordinary Shares to trading on the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market. Raising up to £5m targeted for August.
SigmaRoc (on AIM) to complete RTO of Nordkalk Oy Ab, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rettig Group, for a total Consideration of EUR470m. Nordkalk was established in 1898 as a limestone developer in Finland and since expanded across northern Europe to become the leading limestone company in the area. The Company has raised £260m from the Placing and £1.6m from the Retail Offer. Based on the Placing Price, Mkt Cap on Admission is expected to be approximately £542m. Due Late August.
BiVictriX Therapeutics to join AIM, a UK based drug development company which was incorporated in February 2016 and has developed its proprietary Bi-Cygni® technology. This technology utilises Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC”s), an existing class of potent biological drugs, for the treatment of various cancers including Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, the first condition which BVX intends to treat.
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. Offer TBA. Due early August.
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.
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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