What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Ultimate Products—The Telegraph reports Jim McCarthy, former chief of Poundland has been appointed Chairman of Ultimate Products ahead of a £100m listing in H1 2017. Ultimate Products owns the Beldray cleaning brand and the licence to sell Russell Hobbs and Salter electrical products in the UK.
Breakfast buffet
Crossword Cybersecurity* (ISDX:CCS) 195p £6.1m
The technology commercialisation company focusing exclusively on the cyber security sector, and Coventry University have seen their spin out venture, CyberOwl Ltd complete a successful fundraising, securing a further £510k. Mercia Fund Management and Coventry University Enterprises invested the additional funds to accelerate product development. This investment will enable CyberOwl to rapidly develop its leading edge target centric network monitoring product aimed at the fast growing Smart Cities and Internet of Things arena. Former Associate Director at KPMG Daniel Ng has joined as CEO, & Ken Woghiren, former Head of Architecture and Strategy at BBC Worldwide and ASOS, has been appointed as CTO. Tom Ilube moves to non exec Chair of CyberOwl.
M.P Evans (LON:MPE) 524.30p £292.56m
The offer made by Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad has now lapsed with acceptances of c.13.2% received. The board welcomes the rejection by shareholders of the Offer, which it believes very substantially undervalued M.P.Evans' shares. "MP Evans owns, and manages, an excellent portfolio of plantations and has a clear strategy for growing the business significantly further, both by acquisition and by the development of its existing plantable areas. The successful growth to date has led to the board's recently stated intention to increase dividends substantially. The board thanks our shareholders for their support and for their belief in the continuing successful execution of our growth strategy."
Abzena (ABZA.L) 34.39p £47.50m
The life sciences group providing services and technologies to enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, has signed a licence agreement with Trieza Therapeutics, Inc. Trieza is a start-up biotechnology company specialising in the discovery and development of immunomodulatory oncolytic viruses based in the USA. Abzena has granted Trieza an exclusive worldwide, royalty bearing, sub-licensable licence to an undisclosed antibody sequence, which was created using the Group's Composite Human Antibody™ technology, for exploitation in conjunction with Trieza's viral vector technology to develop novel therapies in oncology. Abzena could receive up to $35m in development and commercial milestone payments as well as royalties on the sale of licensed products containing the Abzena sequence.
HY Sep16 results from the shion-forward business focused on the young Indian e-commerce market. Sales growth +114% to £7.9m. Website traffic +132% to 38.0m. Active customers +138% to 431,000. Operating loss of £9.2m vs £6.1m/. Net cash of £7.7m. A further £12.9m raised in November. FYMar17E Revs £18.4m and £17m pre-tax loss. FYMar18E revs of £49.4m and pre-tax loss of £9.2m.
Harvest Minerals (LON:HMI) 21.62p £19.89m
Harvest Minerals has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to supply up to 45Kt of KPfértil throughout 2017 to a major coffee producer in the Carmo region, close to the Company's Arapua Fertilizer Project, located in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. KPfértil is the brand name registered by Harvest for its direct application natural fertilizer and remineraliser product from the Company's Maximus prospect, which is part of the Arapua project. The expected price is BRL200 per tonne (c. US$60 based on today's exchange rate). The LOI is conditional on testwork and he product meeting certain minimum specifications.
Global Invacom Group(LON:GINV) 7.75p £24m
The specialist in satellite broadcast solutions manufacturing has informed shareholders that, following a preliminary review and assessment of the projected financial statements, the Group expects to report a net loss for FY Dec 2016. This is primarily due to the Group's consolidation of its manufacturing operations in the People's Republic of China, as announced on 8 November 2016. This includes one-off shut-down costs of $3m. The Group anticipates that the consolidation will translate into improved gross margins and operational cost efficiencies in FY2017 and beyond. FYDec16E rev S$198m. S$1.4m pre-tax loss.
Stellar Diamonds (LON:STEL) 7.12p £2.27m
FYJun16 results from diamond development company focused on West Africa. Preliminary economic assessment delivered for the proposed combined Tongo-Tonguma project shows robust returns with pre-tax NPV (10) of US$172 million and IRR of 49% . Trial mining has yielded a total of 11,564 carats to date at the Baoulé Project, Guinea. FY revenue of $499k, net loss of $7m including $4.3m impairment. Looking to raise approximately $45 million through a combination of debt and equity to develop the Tongo/Tonguma combined project .
Surgical Innovations (LON:SUN) 3.38p £16.36m
The designer and manufacturer of innovative technology for minimally invasive surgery, announces the revision of banking facilities made available by Yorkshire Bank. The existing term loan of approximately £1.70m has been repaid from available cash resources, and the bank has made available a Revolving Credit Facility of up to £1.30m for working capital and other purposes until 31 March 2020. Following the recent conversion of loan notes the company is now debt free and continues to seek acquisition targets.
Helios Underwriting (LON:HUW) 155p £23.37m
In line with its strategy of increasing underwriting capacity through acquisition, Helios has conditionally agreed to acquire Pooks Limited, a limited liability member of Lloyd's which is ultimately beneficially owned by Nigel Hanbury (a substantial holder of HUW), for a consideration of £870,659 in cash. The 2017 underwriting capacity of Pooks is £784,666 (this compares with Helios's 2017 capacity of £32.6 million for 2017 prior to this acquisition).
Advanced Oncotherapy (LON:AVO) 59.5p £41.32m
The developer of next-generation proton therapy systems for cancer treatment, announced that the Company has integrated the proton source and Radio Frequency Quadruple (RFQ), following a successful testing and calibration programme at ADAM (a research company), in Geneva. This work has demonstrated there is a predicted acceleration of the proton beam through this very sophisticated structure, the RFQ, and that the measurements matched those expected from computer simulations. The completion of this key milestone is a significant indicator of the continued successful technical development of the Company's LIGHT proton system.