What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
AIM
Block Energy—a NEX Listed UK based oil exploration and production company whose main country of operation is the Republic of Georgia, looks to join AIM end of February 2018. Offer TBC
OnTheMarket—Intention to float on AIM to raise c.£50m which will be used to fund the growth of the OnTheMarket.com portal, already the third biggest UK residential property portal provider. Offer raising £30m at 165p with mkt cap of £100m . Due 9 Feb.
Main Market Specialist Funds
Life Settlement—closed-ended investment company whose principal activities will be to support and manage portfolios of whole and partial interests in life settlement policies issued by life insurance companies operating predominantly in the US. Due 6 Mar.
Main Market Premium Listing
IntegraFin provides platform services to UK clients and their financial advisers through its award-winning platform, Transact. Due Mar 18. FYSep2017 PBT up 44% to £29.9m.
GEMS Education—report by Reuters that the private schools group is seeking a $4.5bn to $5bn London float in 2018. FYAug17 rev $926.2m and adjusted EBITDA $261.6m.
CVC (Sky Bet) rumoured to be seeking £2.5bn plus float.
VC firm Augmentum rumoured to be seeking raise up to £125m.
Breakfast buffet
Northern Bear (LON:NTBR) 80p £14.1m
Northern Bear provided an update on trading for the three month period ended 31 Dec 2017.
Following the publication of the Group's unaudited interim results for the six months to 30 Sept 2017, the Group has continued to trade strongly.
The Board is delighted to announce that the Group's turnover and adjusted PBT from continuing operations (stated prior to the impact of transaction costs and the amortisation of acquired intangibles, both associated with the acquisition of H Peel & Sons (Holdings) Limited announced in July 2017) are currently ahead of both management expectations and excellent prior year results.
The Group continues to have a high level of committed orders and the Directors remain positive about the outlook for trading in the remainder of the financial year ending 31 Mar 2018
Despite poor weather in January 2018, and subject to there being no exceptional adverse weather conditions over the remainder of the winter period, we look forward to announcing another strong set of results for the full financial year.
Scientific Digital Imaging (LON:SDI) 29.5p £26.21m
Scientific Digital Imaging, the group focused on the design and manufacture of scientific and technology products for use by the life science, healthcare, astronomy, consumer manufacturing and art conservation markets, announced that, further to the announcement of 4 Jan 2018, it has acquired certain fixed assets, stock, designs and trademarks from Quantum Scientific Imaging Inc. ("QSI").
The Acquisition, effective 1 Feb 2018, complements the existing product offering of the Group's Atik Cameras brand. The Group intends to move all the purchased assets from the US to Atik's manufacturing base in Lisbon. QSI's total sales (unaudited) in the year to 31 Dec 2017 were c.£0.5m, however SDI expects to achieve lower sales than this from the acquisition in the first year of ownership. SDI is paying a total cash consideration of $0.35m (c. £0.25m).
Maintel Holdings (LON:MAI) 793p £110m
Maintel Holdings, the leading systems integrator and managed services provider, issued the following trading update for the year ending 31 Dec 2017.
Maintel announced that trading for the year ending 31 Dec 2017 is in line with expectations.
* The Group has seen customer orders for Avaya installations continue to recover. A promising pipeline is also developing which is expected to have a positive impact on Managed Services and Technology performance in Q1 2018.
* The integration of Intrinsic Technology continues to go well and, in addition, Maintel is pleased to see an increasing level of cross-sell across the Group; both in terms of Cisco sales into the Maintel customer base and also sales of Maintel's ICON suite of cloud and managed services into the Intrinsic customer base.
The Group will deliver adjusted EBITDA of approximately £12.5m for the year ended 31 Dec 2017, with revenue marginally ahead of expectations. The closing net debt position will also be better than previously expected.
As stated previously, and reflecting continued confidence in underlying cash flows and the longer-term prospects for the Group, it remains the current intention for the total full year 2017 dividend to grow 10% year on year, in line with existing guidance.
The Board remains confident in delivering substantial growth in revenue and EBITDA in the full year to 31 Dec 2018.
Autins Group (LON:AUTG) 122p £26.52m
Autins Group, a leading designer, manufacturer and supplier of acoustic and thermal insulation solutions for the automotive sector, will hold its AGM today, where the Group's Chairman, Adam Attwood, will provide the following statement:
"We delivered strong top line growth in FY2017 and are seeing this continue during FY2018 although still very much re-iterating that we expect a significant second half weighting to results. FY2018 is a year where we will see significant progress for Autins as we continue to take on many challenges and opportunities to better secure a robust business model that can be scaled efficiently and deliver growth profitably and sustainably. Our Neptune product is gaining momentum and further traction in the market, our operations are focused on improving productivity and customer service, and we are increasingly on a path to working as one company in everything we do.
The Board remains confident in our strategy and the management is focused on deploying our detailed business plans. We are all committed to realising the full potential of the Group.”
Kodal Minerals (LON:KOD) 0.2p £14m
Kodal Minerals, the mineral exploration and development company focussed on West Africa, provided an update on the Company's concessions at the Bougouni Lithium Project in Southern Mali.
As announced on 18 Jan 2018 and earlier on 13 Dec 2017, the Company had filed new applications over two new 100 sq km licences covering the high priority areas within the Kolassokoro area directly in the name of its Malian subsidiary, Future Minerals SARL. The Company now confirms it has received fully signed "conventions" granting the Company exclusive exploration rights to the Project Area. In addition, the Company has immediately moved to apply for "Arretes" over the Project Area, that will affirm the Company's rights and ensure title for an initial three year period with rights for two renewals of two years each.
Arena Events (LON:ARE) 57p £67.64m
Arena Events Group announced it has expanded its product portfolio in the UK with the acquisition of specialist furniture hire business GLD Productions.
GLD supplies furniture to concerts, music festivals, fashion shows, high profile sporting occasions and corporate hospitality events across the UK. GLD's stock and staff will be incorporated into Arena's Spaceworks Furniture Hire division at its Membury facility, with employees working under Managing Director Chris Piggott.
This acquisition, which is expected to add approximately £1.5m in annual revenue, is in line with the Group's strategy of continuing to identify growth areas and expand its product range in order to create maximum value for its clients.
Gfinity (LON:GFIN) 22.3p £48.77m
Gfinity, a leading international esports entertainment group, announced that Hashtag United will join the third season of its Gfinity Elite Series, which will commence next month at the Gfinity Arena in London.
Hashtag United was founded in 2016 by internet entrepreneur Spencer Owen. He is a FIFA gamer best known for his Spencer FC YouTube channel which has nearly 2 million subscribers. Hashtag United, which has won tens of thousands of prize money to date competing in FIFA tournaments, is headquarted in London and has amassed a considerable following of nearly 350,000 viewers by streaming football games on YouTube. The BBC reported in 2016 that Hashtag United's games were watched on a weekly basis by more than half a million viewers and the audience is continuing to grow.
As of Jan 2017, Spencer FC and Hashtag United had a combined YouTube audience of nearly 2.3 million viewers, plus the latter has over 160,000 and 300,000 active Twitter and Instagram followers respectively. In addition, Hashtag United's FIFA team is supported by 1 million fans.
Utilitywise (LON:UTW) SUSPENDED
Utilitywise, a leading independent utility cost management consultancy, announced that its closing net debt as at 31 Jan 2018 was £15m. This represents a £4m (21%) reduction in the Group's net borrowings position since 31 Jul 2017, as a result of the cash generation of the Group during the first half of its financial year ended 31 Jul 2018.
The closing net debt of £15m comprises £11.9m of net bank borrowings and £3.1m of other loans.
The £11.9m of net bank borrowings is funded by a bank facility of £25m.
The £3.1m of other loans are due for repayment between 2018 and 2022.
Avanti Communications (LON:AVN) 10.1p £16m
Avanti Communications announced that Kyle Whitehill will join the board of Avanti as CEO, with effect from 3 Apr 2018.
Kyle joins Avanti from Liquid Telecom Group, where he has been CEO of Liquid Telecom, South Africa since March 2017. Previously, Kyle was with Vodafone Group for almost 15 years, where he served as CEO of Vodafone Qatar, overseeing the successful launch of the country's fastest 4G+ network, CEO of Vodafone Ghana for three years, establishing the company as a market leader in both fixed-line and enterprise services, and COO of Vodafone India, having initially spent almost seven years leading one of Vodafone's biggest enterprise business units in the competitive UK market.
Following the arrival of Mr Whitehill, Alan Harper, Interim CEO, will resume his role as NED of the Company from 3 Apr 2018. The Board thanks Mr Harper for his important contribution during a demanding period in the Company's history.
SDX Energy (LON:SDX) 50.5p £103.3m
SDX Energy, the North Africa focused oil and gas company, has spud its KSS-2 development well on the Sebou permit in Morocco.
The KSS-2 well is the sixth in the Company's nine well campaign. The well is anticipated to take 10-15 days to drill and if successful is expected to be completed, flow tested and connected to existing infrastructure in the near term.
The recently drilled ONZ-7 well will be completed today and will commence test production early next week. SDX expects to provide a further update on testing results later this month.