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OnTheMarket shares climb above property portal group’s 165p float price for the first time

Last updated: 15:15 23 May 2018 BST, First published: 09:40 23 May 2018 BST

Estate agent signs

OnTheMarket PLC (LON:OTMP) shares were strong in late afternoon trading, up 8.7% to 169p, climbing above the property portal group’s 165p float price for the first time since having listed on AIM on February 9.

The group’s rise to record levels came on the day ZPG Plc (LON:ZPG), owner of bigger rival property portal Zoopla, reported interim results.

ZPG shares were down 0.2% at 488.2p with its 41% jump in first-half earnings coming just weeks after the firm agreed to a £2.2bn takeover by US private equity firm Silver Lake Corp.

The group, which also owns price comparison website USwitch, said revenue at its property business was up 34% to £74.9mln, with listings on Zoopla increased by 6% to 982,000 and the number of estate agents on its sites ahead 7% to 15,264 branches

OnTheMarket shares have risen by more than 30% in the past month. Last week, the company announced that it had added 2,500 branches since floating on AIM to give a total of 8,000 branches as it takes business from its rivals.

Rightmove PLC (LON:RMV), the owner of the UK’s biggest property website, saw its shares edges 0.6% higher to 4,881p.

MediaZest shares drop on profit warning

MediaZest PLC (LON:MDZ) shares dropped 14% after the audio visual technology company cut its full year profit guidance.

The group said it no longer expects a return to positive underlying earnings for the year to 31 March 2018 due to delays that mean £200,000 worth of net profit from three large deals won’t be recognised until the following fiscal year.

MediaZest’s, whose clients include HP, Ford and Mitsubishi, now expects profits for the year will be “marginally behind” last year on flat revenues. 

i3 Energy rallies on offshore licence award

i3 Energy PLC (LON:i3E) has been awarded an offshore licensing application target in the UK’s North Sea, sending its shares up 31%.

The target, Block 13/23c, continues a material extension of the Liberator field and delivers a “significant increase” in i3's combined reserve and resource Base, the company said.

"The award of our sole targeted application Block 13/23c ensures i3 has 100% ownership of the full, highly attractive Liberator project,” said chief executive Neill Carson.

“This provides significant additional growth potential and increases our existing full development potential resource base significantly to 80mln barrels of oil.”

Encouraging” assay results for Great Western Mining

Great Western Mining PLC (LON:GWMO) shares jumped 41% after revealing “encouraging” assay results from a drilling programme at its M2 copper-gold projects in Nevada, US.

The company said it has completed drilling eight reverse circulation holes and the first M2-Sharktooth hole at 305 metres.

Assay results showed anomalous gold readings occurred throughout all four holes, coincident with anomalous copper reading. Hole M2-034 delivered a high gold and copper reading.

“Drilling to date has been very encouraging, particularly in M2-034 where we encountered highly anomalous copper intercepts with a high reading of 2.59% Cu accompanied by significant gold,” said chief executive David Fraser. 

Aura Energy glows as it identifies new high-grade vanadium zone in Sweden

Aura Energy Limited (LON:AURA) shares are glowing today as the junior explorer identified a new high-grade vanadium zone at its Häggån battery metals project in Sweden.

Modelling work at the project defined a new and “significant” vanadium zone of 90mln tonnes at 0.42% V2O5.

Importantly, the zone is close to surface and therefore requires less work to get the grey-coloured metal out of the ground.

“The discovery that a large high-grade vanadium zone exists close to surface in the Häggån deposit provides a significant boost to the economics of this battery metals project,” said Aura’s executive chairman Peter Reeve.

“Clearly, this newly defined high-grade zone provides an excellent location to start an open pit which will result in the rare event of mining the best ore grades from the very start of the project.”

Aura shares are up 25% so far on Wednesday to 1.52p.

Dairy Crest top FTSE 250 loser

Cheese and milk company Dairy Crest PLC (LON:DCG) dipped this morning as it unveiled plans to raise the best part of £70mln through a discounted share placing.

Dairy Crest wants to use the money to increase cheese production by more than a third to 77,000 tonnes a year on the back of soaring demand.

It plans to issue the new shares at 495p, an 8% discount to yesterday’s closing price of 536.5p.

News of the fundraise came as the company announced a 345% leap in full-year pre-tax profits to £179.2mln, while revenue grew 10% to £456.8mln.

Shares fell 8% to 493.8p, making it the top loser on the FTSE 250.

Team17 shares climb 30% on AIM debut

Back among the small caps, Team17 Group PLC (LON:TM17) shares surged on their AIM debut this morning.

The video game label and indie development partner priced its shares at 165p last week, giving it a market cap of £217mln.

But the stock is already up to 215p, according to the London Stock Exchange – a tidy gain of 30% for the day so far.

Team17 raised net proceeds of £42.8mln from the IPO, while selling shareholders, which included chief executive Debbie Bestwick, received £59.4mln.

Magnolia Petroleum slumps as it unveils plans to cancel AIM admission

Shares in Magnolia Petroleum PLC (LON:MAGP) plummeted after the oil and gas explorer announced plans to cancel its AIM listing.

The company has been a member of the junior market since 2011 but said it has found it “increasingly difficult” to raise money through AIM in recent years.

Magnolia reckons it can save around £100,000 a year by cancelling its admission and will ask shareholders to vote in favour of the cancellation at a meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 7.

A cancellation means investors will find it very difficult to buy or sell shares as they won’t be listed on any market, so shareholders were rushing to get rid of them today. The stock is down 73% to 0.62p.

Physiomics raises £525,000

Physiomics PLC (LON:PYC) has taken advantage of its recent share price surge to knock out a £525,000 placing.

Shares in the company, whose technology can predict the effect a drug might have on a cancer, skyrocketed towards the end of last year when it signed a €500,000 contract with German firm Merck KgaA to use the virtual tumour software.

Since it signed that deal, Physiomics said it has received “significant interest from potential new clients” and it will use the funds to meet the increased demand.

The firm is selling 13.1mln shares at a price of 4p – a 35% discount to Tuesday’s closing price. The stock fell 22.7% to 4.68p.

Nektan enters US betting market

Heading the other way is mobile gaming software group Nektan PLC (LON:NKTN) which has soared 22.7% to 27p after it partnered with Metric Gaming to enter the US sports betting market.

Last week, the US Supreme Court lifted a federal ban on sports betting and numerous US states are expected to pass legislation to enable gambling across a whole range of events.

Given that broker Jefferies reckons the US market for legal betting on sport could be worth more than US$57bn a year, it is easy to see why investors were scrambling to get involved.

Other Proactive news headlines:

i3 Energy PLC (LON:I3E) has landed an important acreage package in the vicinity of the group’s flagship Liberator field in the North Sea. The acreage was awarded by the UK authorities via the 30th Offshore Licensing Round.

Amphion Innovations PLC (LON:AMP) has sold a 4.3% stake in drug discoverer Motif Bio PLC (LON:MTFB) to pay down some of its debt.

Scancell Holdings PLC (LON:SCLP) said the European Patent Office has granted a patent for the company's Moditope immunotherapy platform, which comes into effect from June 13. This provides what's described as "broad protection" for the company's pipeline of Moditope-derived vaccines.

A revaluation of its stake in SkinBiotherapeutics following the skincare subsidiary's flotation in April catapulted OptiBiotix PLC's (LON:OPTI) into the black last year.

Medical imaging services specialist IXICO PLC (LON:IXI) delivered yet another six months of double-digit revenue growth in the first half of its fiscal year, driven by a string of new contract wins. IXICO’s technology platform manages and helps interpret images from MRI and positron emission tomography as well as collating and making sense of biosensor data.

TyraTech Inc (LON:TYR) has seen strong growth in sales of its poultry mite dust and its equine fly repellent, it said, as it announced a narrowing of losses in 2017.

Specialist bank PCF Group PLC (LON:PCF) said its new blanking platform has delivered increased profitability, with the prospect of more to come as the lending portfolio grows.

Galantas Gold Corporation (LON:GAL, CVE:GAL) chief executive Roland Phelps highlighted continuing improvements at the Omagh mine as underground development advances. The company, in a quarterly results statement, said it expects the underground gold mine will restart producing concentrate from development ore in the early part of the third quarter.

Cabot Energy PLC (LON:CAB) has deferred further drilling at its Rainbow prospect in Canada while it upgrades the infrastructure at the site and analyses the latest sidetrack well data. Four sidetracks drilled earlier this year produced 350 barrels per day (bopd) on average on test.

AfriTin Mining Ltd (LON:ATM) has said it will conduct a share placing to raise funds for an accelerated work programme at its Uis Tin Mine in Namibia.

Arc Minerals Limited (LON:ARCM) said it has been notified that its executive chairman, Nick von Schirnding, yesterday purchased 472,900 shares in the company at a price of 3.10p each. Following this transaction, the firm added, von Schirnding holds a beneficial interest in 8,103,975 ordinary shares representing approximately 1.50% of the company's issued share capital.

ClearStar, Inc. (LON:CLSU), the technology and service provider to the background screening industry, announced that its new marketing campaign, "We Work", has earned two Gold Hermes Creative Awards in the category "Electronic/Social/Interactive Media" for its  lead video and newly-rebranded website.

Kore Potash PLC (LON:KP2) the potash development company whose flagship asset is the 97%-owned Sintoukola Potash Project, has announced the appointment of José Antonio Merino as a non-executive directo nominated by Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile SA with immediate effect. It said Antonio replaces Pablo Altimiras, whose resignation was announced on 26 April 2018

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