We start with a quick round-up of funding news in the cash-hungry resources sector.
88 Energy (LON:88E, ASX:88E) has successfully raised A$12mln though a placing of new shares at a price of one Australian cent per share, a discount of around 23% to the most recently traded price in Australia (where trading was suspended on Monday).
The proceeds are earmarked for the upcoming drill programme at Project Icewine, on Alaska’s North Slope.
Motif Bio (LON:MTFB) is set to receive a £22mln injection of capital as the final conditions of a previously arranged share placing have now been met.
Independent Resources (LON:IRG) has saved itself £174,480 as directors and senior managers took shares in lieu of monies due.
North River Resources (LON:NRRP) has terminated its funding agreement with major shareholder Greenstone and is seeking alternative finance sources to get its Namib lead and zinc mine into production.
Independent Oil and Gas (LON:IOG) said funds from the delayed subscription of 609,500 shares at a price of 23.79p have now been received and the company is fully funded until 4 September 2015.
In other oil sector news, Ahmad Al Muhairbi has resigned from Dragon Oil’s (LON:DGO) independent directors’ committee after he was appointed to the board of major shareholder ENOC.
Next door in the mining department, Gemfields’ (LON:GEM) said its Montepuez ruby mine in Mozambique has enough reserves for more than twenty years of mining, according to its first independent assessment.
Maiden estimates by consultant SRK were that the mine had a JORC-compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource of 467mln carats of ruby and corundum at an in-situ grade of 62.3 carats per tonne
Noricum Gold (LON:NMG) has unearthed through exploration what it believes is likely to be an ore zone at the Walchen VMS Deposit, in Austria.
The newly discovered zone, described as a large limonitic outcrop, is said to have consistent mineralisation along a significant strike length.
Kalimantan Gold (LON:KLG) hailed drill results from the BKM deposit at its main Beruang Kanan project in Indonesia, which show the potential to expand the copper resource there.
The data comes from a further eight holes in the southern part of the prospect.
In total, 80 holes are planned this year and 36 have been completed so far.
Weatherly International (LON:WTI) expects to reach full capacity at its Tschudi copper mine in Namibia in the final quarter of the year.
The mine produced 2,257 tonnes Grade A copper cathode in its first full quarter, but this has risen to 1,000 tonnes per month and will hit a 1,400 peak by the year end.
In the healthcare sector, pharma and services specialist Clinigen (LON:CLIN) said the year just gone had been another "tremendous one", which saw significant organic growth and a revenue rise of more than 45%.
All divisions of the business showed revenue and profit growth in the second half of the year to June 30, compared to the first six months.
Overall, the group's full year gross profit increased by more than 30%.
Sphere Medical (LON:SPHR) took a step further with the development of its Proxima 4 blood gas analyser, with the completion of what's called a data package.
This is an important pre-requisite for submitting technical files and design dossiers for CE-marking (European approval) as well as fulfilling obligations under its collaboration with Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics.
Regenerative med-tech Tissue Regenix (LON:TRX) has agreed an additional regional distribution agreement in the US for its skin graft product DermaPure.
The agreement is for one of twelve states covered by Novitas, one of the administrators of Medicare, the US health system for the elderly.
In other technology news, Israel-based closed circuit TV group Servision (LON:SEV) has signed a deal with fleet black box provider GreenRoad UK.
Servision’s in-vehicle video streaming technology will be offered to GreenRoad’s new and existing customers on a trial basis.
So far, GreenRoad has placed an order for 125 camera systems worth US$70,000 and is trialling the combined solution with six fleet customers.
MySQUAR (LON:MYSQ), the Myanmar- focused social media specialist, has knocked down a key milestone - it now has over 1 million users.
This represents a 29% increase on total users as at the end of May this year and an increase of around 10% in total users since June 30, it added.
The group, which recently floated on AIM, had 775,000 users in its admission document.
Proxama (LON:PROX) is making online PIN changes possible for millions of cardholders after a major European payment processor upgraded its system.
The deal, worth an additional figure in excess of £100,000 this year, allows cardholders to securely view and change their PIN online through Proxama’s Virtual Pin Pad (VPP) technology.
Rising full year revenues were insufficient to offset the heavy cost of investment by electronic invoicing specialist Tungsten Corp (LON:TUNG).
One-off costs and investments weighed on the bottom line, but City analysts reckon the results were slightly better than expected.
The electronic invoicing and financing company reported a £27mln group loss, up from an £11mln loss the prior year, despite a 19% increase in revenue to £23mln. On a ‘per share’ basis the loss widened to a 26.34p from 18.6p in the preceding year.
Finally, bakery and ingredients firm Real Good Food (LON:RGD) said Mike McDonough, the group's finance director, has decided to leave the group at the end of August this year.