Chilean copper explorer Herencia Resources plc (LON:HER) advanced as it said it had made US$1.2mln in a fundraising to support projects and cut debt.
Shares jumped 40% to 0.0840p.
The company said the proceeds will be used to advance its Picachos and Pastizal projects, reduce debt and fund working capital purposes.
Herencia is preparing a comprehensive drill plan, which is expected to be announced June 2017. "The plan will engage wide spaced drilling on both Picachos and Pastizal leases to enhance the existing mineral copper resources," the group said.
Afarak Group plc (LON:AFRK) gained 8.15% to 73.0p as it expects first quarter results will be “among the highest recorded” since it entered the mineral business.
The producer of specialty alloys said an increase in chrome ore and ferrochrome market prices along with a pick-up in production in Germany and South Africa “contributed significantly to this improved performance”.
Turbo Power Systems Inc (LON:TPS) headed south, with its shares down 42.29% to 0.0202p, as it reported a 4% drop in first quarter revenue to £3.21mln .The company said it was presenting resolutions to cancel its admission to trading on AIM with effect from 5 June. It reported a net loss of £0.34mln for the quarter, compared to £0.15mln the previous year.
11.37am...Richoux's shares slide as annual earnings drop
Restaurant owner Richoux Group plc's (LON:RIC) shares dropped 22.02% to 21.44p after dishing up a fall in full year underlying earnings.
The company, whose restaurants include Dean's Diner, Villagio, and Friendly Phil's, said adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) plunged to £200,000 from £1.64mln a year ago, largely reflecting reorganisation costs and impairment charges. Revenue rose 2.2% to £13.32mln.
Richoux's chief executive Jonathan Kaye said, "deterioration in consumer confidence due to future economic conditions could have a detrimental impact on the group in terms of sales and footfall".
He added: "This risk is mitigated by the positioning the group's brands in the affordable casual dining market, constantly reviewing pricing to ensure it is competitive, and continued focus on customers with targeted and adaptable marketing."
Amryt Pharma plc’s (LON:AMYT) shares advanced 11.82% to 24.60p after saying a real world study of its cholesterol-lowering drug showed it to be “very powerful and well tolerated”.
Lojuxta performed better in the field than it did in phase III clinical trials in treating Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (HoFH), a rare, life-threatening disease, which impairs the body's ability to remove ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) from the blood.
Croma Security Solutions Group PLC’s (LON:CSSG) was up 12.96% to 61.0p as it announced three new contract wins for its Fastvein technology, a security system that scans veins in a person’s hand. The company said two of the orders are from the education sector and the other is to a consortium of highway contractors.
Ferrum Crescent Ltd’s (LON:FCR) declined 18.64% to 0.108p after calling time on its Moonlight iron ore project in Limpopo, South Africa after failing to find a partner.
The company is to undertake an orderly winding-up and hand-over process of the operations and licences as soon as practicable.
In February, a farm-in and joint venture agreement with Business Venture Investments fell through and talks with a possible new partner came to nothing.
10.45am... Proactive news headlines
Ferrum Crescent PLC (LON:FCR) has called time on its Moonlight iron ore project in Limpopo, South Africa after failing to find a partner. The company is to undertake an orderly winding-up and hand-over process of the operations and licences as soon as practicable. Shares fell 18% to 0.11p.
Eland Oil & Gas PLC (LON:ELA) has unveiled a reserves upgrade that delivers a three-fold increase in recoverable reserves for the wells at the Opuama and Gbetiokun operations in Nigeria. Proven and probable (2P) reserves for a total of four wells (Opuama-1, Opuama-3, Opuama-7 and Gbetiokun-1) are set at 33.5mln barrels – which amounts to 11.48mln net for Eland’s stake, after royalties.
Amryt Pharma PLC (LON:AMYT) said a real world study of its cholesterol-lowering drug showed it to be “very powerful and well tolerated”. In fact Lojuxta performed better in the field than it did in phase III clinical trials in treating Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (HoFH). Shares rose 13% to 24.8p.
C4X Discovery Holdings plc's (LON:C4XD) half-year results charted a period of significant change which now sees it primed for progress. It has shifted to developing a high-value, pre-clinical portfolio from which it hopes to create revenue-generating licensing deals. The existing fee-for-service agreements have stopped.
Currency shifts and a drop in downstream sales affected Green Dragon Gas Ltd (LON:GDG) in 2016 even though the amount of gas its own wells sold rose by a third. Green Dragon’s coal bed wells in China saw a 34% rise in sales and generated a profit of US$16.5mln, but the downstream issues sent the group overall into a US$12.1mln loss.
KEFI Minerals plc (LON:KEFI) has received a financial boost from the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority in the form of a £1mln VAT refund. The country is host to the gold explorer’s Tulu Kapi project, which is being developed for production.
9.25am...Servoca gains as it says first half results will exceed expectations
Servoca plc (LON:SVCA) shares jumped 13.99% to 25.08p after saying it made a positive start to the year. The company, which provides outsourcing recruitment to the healthcare and education sectors, said results for the first six months beat its expectations and were ahead of the same period a year earlier.
"The group's diversified business mix has delivered a resilient performance and this gives the board confidence as we enter the second half," Servoca said in a brief trading update.
Shares in Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) Plc (LON:EOG) gained 11.84% to 6.99p after identifying a further four new exploration prospects in Ireland’s Atlantic exploration frontier. The explorer said an investigation of the ‘deeper prospectivity’ in Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL) 2/13 has unearthed new targets, and it sees four of them – tagged by Europa as ‘Kilroy’, ‘Keane’, ‘Kiely’ and ‘Lead F’ - as being significant.
On the downside, Synairgen plc (LON:SNG) has tumbled 29.76% to 13.06p after AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN) returned the rights to a promising respiratory drug as it did not meet “predefined criteria for progression”. Synairgen said the effects of the drug, AZD9412, on severe exacerbations could not be determined as cold infections did not affect trial patients' asthma in the INEXAS study as much as predicted.
Weatherly International plc (LON:WTI) shares flew 13.56% lower to 0.389p after saying first quarter production of copper cathode had fallen to 24% below nameplate due to slower-than-anticipated leach rates for mixed oxide and sulphide ore stacked in late 2016 and early 2017.
The company said it was “unable to compensate due to above average seasonal rainfall during the quarter which prevented short-term acceleration of mining and stacking”. Poor production pushed quarterly operating costs higher, the group added.