It was a scarcely believable week for those with a stake in Independent Resources plc (LON:IRG).
Shares rocketed more than 735% (no, you haven’t read that wrong) after it was confirmed that the team behind bulletin board favourite Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) was moving in.
Sound has taken a 29.9% stake in Tunisia-focused Independent, as well as three board seats.
An open offer will raise up to £1.5mln, while small caps specialist Greenberry will snap up £650,000-worth of new shares at 0.065p and provide a £1mln loan.
As part of the upheaval, Independent’s name will change to Echo Energy (see what they did there?!) to reflect the change in ownership.
Shares kicked off the week trading around the 0.06p mark, but hit 0.57p come Friday.
If you’d have taken a punt on Blur Group PLC (LON:BLUR) at the start of the week, you’d be sitting pretty by now.
Shares in the e-commerce specialist more than doubled on Tuesday after it moved a step closer to adding a big name to its user base.
Investors got excited when Blur confirmed it had entered into final negotiations with a global electronics that wants to use the company’s platform.
Importantly though, the unnamed firm is just one of a number of big companies – including “household names in some circumstances” – that Blur is speaking to.
Shares eased slightly towards the end of the week, but they were still up more than 83% to 14.2p on Friday. Not a bad week’s work.
Tuesday was also a good day for Mountfield Group Plc (LON:MOGP) investors, with shares going through the roof after it revealed both arms of its flooring business turned a profit last year.
That was backed up by expectations that both divisions should do better again this year, after making an “extremely strong” start so far in 2017.
It has won two new contracts in the City worth £3.7mln over the past ten weeks or so and told investors that the problems it faced in past years are now behind it.
Shares in Mountfield leapt 40% throughout the week to trade at 1.4p.
Despite the successes of the above, it’s not been a great week for either AIM or its bigger brother, the FTSE 100.
The junior market lost 0.1%, or 1.8 points, over the course of the week, although that was still enough to get one over the blue chip index, which slipped 0.4%, or 35 points, to 7,342.
Evidently then, it wasn’t all sunshine and blue skies among the small caps.
And indeed it wasn’t the best of weeks for Aminex plc (LON:AEX) and Solo Oil PLC (LON:SOLO), with the explorers tumbling on the latest news from the Ntorya well in Tanzania.
During drilling there was a significant influx of gas into the well, and as a result they had to adapt which resulted in constricted gas flow during testing.
Nonetheless, Aminex said the limited flow of gas amounted to a rate of 17mln cubic feet per day, which would be 2,833 barrels oil equivalent a day.
Both companies said that, despite the hiccups, the results were a “significant success” although investors weren’t so sure.
Despite a rally in share prices on Friday, Aminex lost 25% of its value throughout the week, while Solo was hit slightly harder and down 28%.
One of the reasons for the sharp fall was likely the high expectations going into the drilling, with shares in Aminex and Solo making strong gains in recent weeks.
Nautilus Marine Services PLC (LON:NAUT) shipped some (actually quite a lot of) water over the past few days after annual results showed another hefty loss.
It was harsh maybe on the company, which has undergone a total transformation into an oilfield services group over the past year.
But a comment that Nautilus has sufficient financial strength and working capital to survive a continued downturn in the offshore services market in 2017 suggested it may be a while before the full benefits of the new direction start to show through.
The bleak outlook led to shares sinking 27% to 12.3p.
Another of the junior market’s proper tiddlers, Electronic Data Processing PLC (LON:EDP) (market cap of £8.4mln), fell as it revealed a potential buyer had pulled out and its pension scheme deficit had risen to £3.38mln from £2.27mln.
An alternative possible buyer has made an approach, but if this also falls through EDP said it will consider returning some cash to its shareholders.
Shares lost 15% on the news and were changing hands for 63.2p on Friday.