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Bloomsbury Publishing on the rise after Red Globe Press acquisition

Last updated: 15:22 23 Apr 2021 BST, First published: 08:38 23 Apr 2021 BST

Bigblu - Bigblu Broadband rises early after proposing sale of holding in Quickline

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (LON:BMY) gained 7% to 299.65p after snapping up certain assets of Red Globe Press (RGP), the academic imprint, from Macmillan Education Ltd for £3.7mln.

The Harry Potter publisher said £2.1mln will be satisfied in cash at completion and up to £1.6mln will be paid on or post-completion, subject to the assignment of certain contracts.

RGP specialises in high-quality publishing for Higher Education students globally in Humanities and Social Sciences, Business and Management, and Study Skills. It has a backlist of more than 7,000 titles and publishes more than 100 new titles per year, with content including digital platforms, textbooks, research-driven materials and general academic publishing.

2.30pm: Sealand Galaxy Capital motors higher after subsidiary awarded new contract to produce TikTok videos

Sealand Galaxy Capital Limited (LON:SCGL) motored 9% higher to 1.8p in the afternoon after its subsidiary New Sky Global Media, a digital marketing and advertising company, was awarded a new contract.

It is for another new project by its longstanding client, Suncity Group Leisure Services, to create 45 new digital campaign videos for TikTok.

The contract is worth £190,000 and runs until March 2022.

12.50pm: Record moves higher after assets under management hit record level

Record PLC (LON:REC) advanced 8% to 84.9p at lunchtime after assets under management equivalents (AUME) rose by 37% in the year to the end of March.

AUME rose to a record level of US$80.1bn (£57.8bn) at the end of the company’s fiscal year, helped by net inflows of US$9.7bn.

The asset management firm saw diversified AUME net inflows in the year of US$2.1bn into Passive Hedging and across its higher-margin Dynamic Hedging (US$6.6bn) and Multi-Product (US$1.0bn) strategies.

11.50am: Novacyt shoots up after entering national framework agreement

Novacyt SA (LON:NCYT) shot up 15% to 427.57p at midday after being included in the Public Health England (PHE) national framework agreement.

The framework allows PHE and NHS hospitals to purchase Novacyt’s accredited products without the need for direct contract awards.

Meanwhile, the AIM-listed firm has expanded its portfolio with more COVID-19 tests.

10.30am: Audioboom edges higher after revealing revenue will top expectations 

Audioboom Group PLC (LON:BOOM) edged 5% higher to 696.25p in late morning after announcing full-year revenues will be well over the current market expectations.

The podcast firm has continued to see “strong sales momentum” amid a content-focused expansion plan, with performance lifted by new advertising bookings.

The AIM-listed group signed advertising bookings for the year now represented over 95% of its recently upwardly revised market forecast for revenue in 2021.

9.35am: Workspace Group drops on Barclays double-downgrade

Workspace Group PLC (LON:WKP) shed 6% to 783.5p after the shares were double-downgraded by Barclays, who said "too much" reopening optimism was priced into the shares.

Analysts at the bank noted that after office take-up collapsed in all London sub-markets in 2020, vacancy rates have roughly doubled with City sub-markets now at nearly 11% and availability of space is almost at 20-year record levels.

Barclays moved two marks down to an 'underweight' rating on the shares from the previous 'overweight', cutting its share price target to 700p from 745p.

Meanwhile, Fulham Shore PLC (LON:FUL) advanced 5% to 16.74p after announcing that 70 of its 72 Franco Manca and The Real Greek restaurants were open for business.

Group sales in the week ended Sunday April 18 were described as “very encouraging”; not only were they up on the previous week but also better than in the same week in 2019, when the word “pandemic” was still largely thought of as a halfway decent score in Scrabble.

The group continues to identify potential new locations for its two businesses. In the last two weeks, it has inspected sites in many towns and cities across the UK including London, York, Durham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Liverpool and Manchester, for either new or additional sites.

8.40am: Bigblu Broadband rises early after proposing sale of holding in Quickline

Bigblu Broadband PLC (LON:BBB) was an early riser on Friday, surging 18% to 127.5p after proposing the sale of its holding in Quickline, the holding company for Quickline Communications.

The AIM-listed broadband services provider has agreed a deal with private markets investment firm Northleaf Capital Partners valuing the shareholding at up to £48.6mln, which is a return of up to 5.8 times the cost of the initial investment.

Of these, £41.1mln will be paid in cash and £5.6mln in loan notes on completion.

Elsewhere, Symphony Environmental Technologies PLC (LON:SYM) advanced 8% to 24.3p after its d2p antimicrobial film will cover seats and handles for buses of Guarulhos, in Brazil.

The AIM-listed firm said a donation has been made to provide material for 858 vehicles, protecting over 400,000 passengers from coronavirus and other bacteria and fungi normally present on surfaces.

Guarulhos becomes the first public transport system in the world to incorporate d2p anti-microbial technology to protect the health of its users.

Proactive news headlines

Bahamas Petroleum Company PLC (LON:BPC) said it will convene an extraordinary general meeting and reveal a number of material changes to the business including a £6.9mln capital raise, a new chief executive, and a rebrand to ‘Challenger Energy Group PLC’.

Genedrive PLC (LON:GDR) announced the publication of a large independent multi-centre study evaluating the real-world performance of its HCV test in low and middle-income countries.

Record PLC (LON:REC), the currency and derivatives manager, saw assets under management equivalents (AUME) rise by 37% in the year to the end of March to a record level of US$80.1bn, helped by net inflows of US$9.7bn.

Plant Health Care PLC (LON:PHC) has reported revenue growth and narrower losses in 2020 as the company hailed its commercial business turning earnings and cash positive for the first time. 

Destiny Pharma PLC (LON:DEST) said it was notified on 22 April 2021 that on that same day, Nick Rodgers, chairman of the company, purchased 5,000 ordinary shares at a price of 158p per share, taking his total beneficial interest to 52,462 shares, or 0.09% of the total issued share capital.

e-therapeutics PLC (LON:ETX) has reached two key milestones in its collaboration with Galapagos NV, triggering two payments to the company.

Chaarat Gold Holdings Ltd (LON:CGH) said ESG expert Sandra Stash is to join the board as an independent non-executive director at the beginning of May.

W Resources PLC (LON:WRES) announced a new hire, plant manager for the La Parrilla project, and also updated on recent concentrate shipments from the mine.

XLMedia PLC (LON:XLM) confirmed it will announce its audited preliminary results for 2020 on Tuesday, 27 April.

Westminster Group PLC (LON:WSG) said it intends to announce its audited final results for 2020 on Friday 30 April.

Supply@ME Capital plc (LON:SYME) expects to publish audited accounts for 2020 during May and said it annual general meeting will take place during June, full details of which will be announced in due course.

Alliance Pharma PLC (LON:APH) will hold its annual general meeting on 19 May 2021 at its head office in Chippenham.
 

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