What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Foresight Solar Fund Limited— Seeking to raise £50m on Main Market investing in a diversified portfolio of predominantly UK ground-based solar Photovoltaic assets
BioPharma Credit—Targeting $300m + raise on LSE. "This investment trust will give investors access to debt investments tied to the fast growing life sciences industry, offering predictable cash flows over a sustained period of time.” Admission due 27 Mar.
Tufton Oceanic Assets- The Company intends to invest in a diversified portfolio of second hand commercial sea-going vessels where the Investment Manager believes that an attractive opportunity exists in shipping. $150m raise. Admission 3 April.
Anglo African Oil & Gas — £10m raise Acquiring stake in producing near offshore field in the Republic of the Congo. Admission due 6 March.
Guinness Oil & Gas Exploration — Publication of prospectus. Seeking to raise £50m and invest in 15 exploration companies at launch, with plans to grow the portfolio to 30 positions during its lifetime. Admission due 7 March
Breakfast buffet
AFC Energy (LON:AFC) 15p £58.64m
The industrial fuel cell power company, has received confirmation from PowerHouse Energy plc (PHE.L) of the Company's first commercial sale of a small-scale alkaline hydrogen fuel cell system. In accordance with the order from PowerHouse, AFC Energy will deliver the system once all parties are satisfied and it is confirmed that the PowerHouse G3-UHt Ultra-high temperature waste gasification system has been successfully recommissioned and is generating a hydrogen stream specification appropriate for the operation of the AFC Energy proprietary fuel cell system.
Touchstone Innovations (LON:IVO) 288p £464.3m
Touchstone (formerly Imperial) has led a £12.0m funding round in Garrison Technology Limited a cyber security company based in London. Innovations has committed £3.85m to the round alongside BGF Ventures, NM Capital and existing angel investors. Innovations first invested in Garrison in 2015 and following this new investment, now holds a 22.5% stake in the Company. This is likely to result in a net fair value gain on Innovations' existing investment of ca. £3.0 million. Garrison has developed an anti-malware product that effectively blocks the highest impact cyber threats to modern organisations, i.e. internet-borne targeted attacks. Garrison's unique technology enables a previously unachievable blend of ultra-secure internet connectivity, user experience and enterprise scalability.
4D Pharma (LON:DDDD) 605p £391.89m
The company focusing on the development of live biotherapeutics, has updated on the development and first clinical trial of its proprietary diagnostic platform, MicroDx. Interim analysis of data generated in the study has revealed: There are significant differences between the microbiota profiles of IBS patients and healthy subjects. The microbiota of IBS clinical subtypes are not significantly different, supporting the rationale for Blautix as a therapy for all IBS subtypes. MicroDx is able to differentiate IBS patients from healthy subjects based on metabolite profiles. “The exceptional efforts of our team have potentially opened the way for a point of care diagnostic for IBS, and provided the means to monitor our therapeutic intervention Blautix, our clinical stage programme for the treatment of IBS.” MicroDX will be incorporated in other trials.
FairFX (LON:FFX) 40.75p £42.3m
The multicurrency payments specialist, has agreed a deal with Sky Media, the advertising arm of Sky, to be a sponsor of Sky Sports F1 for the 2017 season; having previously sponsored the channel in 2015. The campaign commences with the first practice session at the Australian Grand Prix™ on March 24th, and runs until the conclusion of the season at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix™ on November 26th. Sky Sports F1 is the only place where viewers can watch all 20 races live in HD and now ultra HD. FairFX took the decision to return as a sponsor following an extensive analysis of the performance of the previous sponsorship in 2015, which clearly demonstrated the benefits in terms of brand awareness as well as cost effective-customer acquisition. FYDec17E rev £11.16m and PBT of £0.52m.
Versarien (LON:VRS) 16p £19.4m
The advanced materials group has completed a fundraising at 15p in conjunction with an offer via PrimaryBid. The fundraising was oversubscribed and the company has extended the size of the round to £1.5m from £1m. "The funds raised will allow us to significantly scale up both our graphene manufacturing capabilities and our marketing efforts to take advantage of the substantial commercial opportunities we are seeing.”
Abzena (LON:ABZA) 36.5p £50.3m
The life sciences group providing services and technologies enabling the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, notes that one of the 'Abzena inside' Composite Human Antibody™ products previously disclosed as being in Phase I trials is moving forwards into a Phase II clinical trial. The product is being developed by an un-named major US pharmaceutical company for the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions and has been studied to date in two Phase I clinical trials.
MetalNRG (AQSE:MNRG) 1.95p £1.3m
The natural resource investing company, announced the appointment of Paul Johnson as CEO with immediate effect. Paul was previously a non-exec director of the Company. “The management team have been actively investigating new opportunities and have a pipeline from which we anticipate further developments will be announced in due course. The appointment of Paul as CEO marks an inflection point in the commitment of management time to developing the Company."
Valiant Investments (AQSE:VALP) 0.32p £2.6m
Valiant has raised £23,000 by way of a placing at a price of 0.1p. The monies raised will provide the Company with additional working capital and enable it to further accelerate the development of its 84.7% owned subsidiary, Flamethrower plc, an app developer.
Satellite Solutions (LON:SAT) 8.87p £47.59m
The global communications company specialising in rural and last mile broadband, has agreed to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of BorderNET Internet Pty Ltd in Australia and the customer bases of NextNet and AS Distriktsnett in Norway for an aggregate consideration of £1.8m, to be satisfied by a mixture of cash and shares. The cash elements of these transactions will be financed by utilising the recently announced HSBC facility. The acquisitions are a continuation of SSW's roll-up strategy whereby BorderNET's operations will be integrated into the existing Australian business (Skymesh) and NextNet and ASDN will be integrated into SSW's existing Norwegian hub (Breiband). The acquisitions bring an additional 5,500 customers in aggregate, creating greater scale and market share as well as the opportunity for operational gearing through cost efficiencies and network optimisation.