What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
AIM
Cradle Arc—holding company of a group of companies focused on the exploration and development of precious and base metals projects in Africa. Offer raising £2.4m with market cap of £20.13m. Expected late Jan 2018
Volex (LON:VLX) —The global provider of cable assemblies is proposing to move from the main market to AIM on 19 January. £75m market cap. FYMar18E rev £241.5m and £7.19m PBT.
OnTheMarket—Intention to float on AIM to raise c.£50m which will be used to fund the growth of the OnTheMarket.com portal, already the third biggest UK residential property portal provider. Expected valuation £200m to £250m.
Main Market Premium Listing
GEMS Education—report by Reuters that the private schools group is seeking a $4.5bn to $5bn London float in 2018. FYAug17 rev $926.2m and adjusted EBITDA $261.6m.
Vivo Energy—The Africa-focused company, which operates around 1,800 Shell forecourts across 16 countries reported by City
Breakfast Brunch
Scancell Holdings (LON:SCLP) 12.17p £37.98m
“The developer of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a research collaboration with BioNTech for the potential development of innovative, T cell receptor based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. This research collaboration combines Scancell's Moditope® immunotherapy platform and BioNTech's platform technology for high-throughput cloning and characterisation of naturally selected T cell receptors.”
“Upon completion of these studies, BioNTech will have the exclusive option to enter into a licence agreement for the development of cell receptor based therapeutics that are specific to Modi-1 epitopes.”
Strategic Minerals (LON:SML) 2.23p £29.43m
Update on magnetite ore sales at the Company's Cobre operations for the three months to December 2017. Sales of $2.139m (30,730 tons), marginally up on the September quarter ($2.036m / 29,539 tons) and again setting a new quarterly record. Given that the September quarter partly reflected clearance of prepaid June tonnage, this is a strong result. The 2017 annual sales of $5.638m (84,980 tons) represents over a 300% increase. Subject to audit review, the Board anticipates 2017 will see the Company record its first PBT in excess of $1m. Strong cash position ($3.8m 31 Dec) has enabled SML to settle the cash component of the Leigh Creek Copper Mine acquisition, internally fund its start up, and the CARE 2018 drilling programme plus the expected share of 2018 Redmoor exploration expenses. We could see no forecasts.
Harworth (LON:HWG) 110.6p £355.58m
FYDec17 update from the brownfield land and property developer & investor.
“The Group has delivered another strong operational performance in the second half of the year across all its business segments. This, coupled with the indicative outcome of the independent annual valuation of the property portfolio, means that the Group anticipates that its financial performance for the year ended 31 December 2017 will be ahead of its expectations.”
Harworth has now invested all the £27.1m raised in the Group's March 2017 equity placing into five sites, which will reinforce the Group's long term strategic landbank and recurring income base while increasing its geographic reach.
“The specialty pharmaceutical company targeting patient needs in chronic endocrine (hormonal) diseases, announces positive data from the food matrix compatibility study for Alkindi® (development programme name: Infacort®; hydrocortisone granules in capsules for opening) in healthy adult volunteers. This study supports the planned US registration package for Alkindi® for the treatment of paediatric adrenal insufficiency (AI). The Company has opened an IND for Alkindi® and, following advice from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), will be in a position to start the next study in the registration programme, a bioequivalence study in healthy adult volunteers, during H1 2018.
Xeros Technology Group (LON:XSG) 248p £241m
“The developer and provider of patented polymer based technologies with multiple commercial applications, today unveils a domestic washing machine incorporating its three new innovative technologies, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This innovation has the potential to transform the $127bn global domestic laundry market, bringing environmentally sustainable cleaning into the home.” Delivers up to 50% reductions in water, detergent and energy, whilst delivering a demonstrably superior clean. The domestic machine also includes a filtering system which greatly reduces the amount of synthetic microfibers from the washing process from entering rivers and oceans. FY18E £15m rev and £26m pre-tax loss.
Powerhouse Energy Group (LON:PHE) 0.75p £8.53m
Full year update from the company pioneering hydrogen production from waste plastic and used tyres . Highlights include:
An extended trial of the G3-UHt unit showed that the production of syngas could be controlled to produce more than 50 per cent hydrogen by volume with independent analysis by Linde BOC confirming the syngas could be purified to road-fuel-quality hydrogen
- MoU signed to explore the possibility of establishing a DMG® network in Qatar for the conversion of waste to hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles
2018 targets include:
Building, commissioning and full-scale operation of the first commercial DMG®
Signing agreements on the feedstock for the commercial G3-UHt system and on the ultimate use of the syngas.
1Spatial (LON:SPA) 4.1p £31.18m
“The global geospatial software and solutions company announced that it has received formal agreement to provide its software solutions as part of a state-wide Spatial Data Infrastructure project to the State of Michigan Department of Technology in the USA through a subcontract with Esri, the world's leading GIS software provider.
The total contract value for 1Spatial is $766,000 and is for a five year period. The total 1Spatial license fee is $405,000, split into five annual instalments to 1Integrate for ArcGIS, with associated implementation services being $361,000.” FY Jan18E rev £23.6m, £0.65m pre-tax loss.
Impax Asset Management (LON:IPX) 183.9p £205.1m
“The investment manager, provided an update of the development of its assets under discretionary and advisory management ("AUM") for the first quarter of its financial year. On 31 December 2017, the Company's AUM totalled £8.2bn, representing an increase of 13% over the quarter. This AUM figure does not include the assets managed by Pax World Management LLC ("Pax"), the acquisition of which the Company announced on 18 September 2017 and which remains subject to customary closing conditions.”
FYSep 18E rev £42.7m and £12.19m PBT. Div 3.63p.
Nexus Infrastructure (LON:NEXS) 236p £89.96m
FYSep17 results from the provider of essential infrastructure services to the UK housebuilding and commercial sectors. (July IPO).
§ Revenue of £135.0m, in line with expectations (2016: £135.7m)
§ Operating profit of £9.3m, ahead of expectations (2016: £10.4m)
§ Order Book, up 25% at year end to £202.7m
§ Sustained momentum with current order book of £213m as at the end of December 2017
Proposed final dividend of 4.2 pence per share, taking the full year dividend to 6.3 pence per share, ahead of expectations and in line with progressive dividend policy. FY Sep18E rev £153.8m, £EPS 21.7p, Div 7.6p.
Midatech Pharma (LON:MTPH) 48.5p £29.6m
Midatech “has received oral confirmation from Polish regulators that its first in-human study of its sustained release product octreotide MTD201 is approved. Formal written confirmation of the approval is expected within the next two weeks.” “During its pre-clinical programme, data suggested that Q-Octreotide has an equivalent profile to the Novartis SLAR and may offer some important advantages to clinicians and patients. Midatech believes that if these data are confirmed in the upcoming study Q-Octreotide could capture up to a 5% share of the market for SLAR, which is worth $2bn annually”.