A £3.4mln contract with a shipbuilder in South East Asia to produce submarine air purification equipment hit the spot for investors in engineer Corac (LON:CRA).
The atmosphere control systems will be made in Portsmouth and Phil Cartmell, chief executive, said: “This order significantly boosts our aerospace & defence sector order book and provides good visibility of both revenue and production activity at our Portsmouth facility.”
Notably, it is the second contract this year for its atmospheric control arm, after a £2.6mln contract with DCNS, the French naval submarine builder, back in January.
The two new contracts equate to almost a third of the £20mln of total revenues generated by Corac last year.
Shares climbed 23% to 5.2p valuing the company at £22mln or thereabouts.
Meanwhile, in larger news, the FTSE 100 made a 25 point gain today to 6,995 ahead of the US open.
The big econoic story was that UK inflation was negative for the first time since the 1960’s in part due to lower oil prices, suggesting UK interest rates are unlikely to be raised for the foreseeable future.
European bourses were also boosted by the European Central Bank as officials said the ECB could increase bond purchases to increase inflation.
This was coupled with better sentiment over Greece, which says it is close to a deal with its creditors for further funding and may have enough money to last two months.
The French CAC 40 and the German DAX were 1.7% higher to 5,096 and 11,796 respectively.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was led higher by Land Securities Group (LON:LAND).
The largest real estate investment trust in the UK said full-year profit rose, boosted by an increase in rental income. Shares climbed 3% to 1,350p.
Meanwhile, telecom giant Vodafone (LON:VOD) said tough European trading meant profits dropped 6.9%. Its share price reacted accordingly, easing 3.2% to 226p.
Away from the FTSE 100, Irish group DCC (LON:DCC) has agreed to buy Butagaz, a French liquefied petroleum gas business from Shell, in a 338mln deal. Shares jumped 11% to 4,873p.
In small cap news, Aminex (LON:AEX) chief executive Jay Bhattacherjee said it is a very promising time for his company, which is on schedule to be a new gas producer in East Africa. Shares leapt 11% to 2.35p.
Elsewhere, it was the first day of trading on AIM for Stride Gaming (LON:STR).The bingo operator chaired by former Sportingbet boss Nigel Payne had a good debut, rising from its placing price of 135p to 165p by lunch.
It wasn’t all good news however.
Digital marketer and printer Tangent Communications (LON:TNG) disappointed again with its latest trading update.
Pre-tax profits plummeted 80% in the year to February, while chief executive Timothy Green warned the first half performance had been worse than a year ago, which was also subject to a profit warning.
Latest profits were £460,000 compared to £2.35mln a year earlier.
Green said: “2014-15 was a challenging year for Tangent; our profits were down and performance in certain areas of our business fell short of expectations.”
He said the company, which has five separate divisions including online printing firm Goodprint and property marketer Ravensworth, would look to become more streamlined in an effort to cut costs.
Shares have fallen by 91% since it listed in 2000 and are down 40% this year after easing 9% to 3.6p today.