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Purplebricks rises as non-executive director buys half a million shares

Last updated: 15:11 07 Aug 2020 BST, First published: 08:31 07 Aug 2020 BST

Scapa Group PLC -

Purplebricks Group PLC (LON:PURP) jumped 10% to 61.3p after non-executive director Simon Downing acquired 500,000 shares.

Downing, the group’s senior independent non-executive director, paid 57.5p a share.

1.05pm: Rightmove wanted as it speaks of pent-up demand in the housing market

Rightmove PLC (LON:RMV) shot up faster than house prices – up 8.9% at 629.4p – on Friday as it said people are itching to move house.

The property listings website operator said demand for property sales spiked by 50% in June and July, while rentals were up 20% as the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown eased.

The online property portal said the boost reflected pent-up demand and also people wanting to move home after the experience of lockdown.

11.55am: Watchstone Group PLC ticks higher as it guns for PwC in the High Court

Watchstone Group PLC (LON:WTG) rose 23% to 62p after it filed a claim against PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in the High Court.

The claim against the auditing and business consultancy firm is for damages or equitable compensation of £63mln plus exemplary damages, equitable compensation, interest and costs.

Watchstone claims that “an unauthorised and illicit channel of communication” was established between PwC, which was advising Watchstone at the time, and Greenhill, a corporate finance adviser to Slater & Gordon – the company to which it sold its Professional Services Division in 2015.

10.45am: Rolls-Royce dips as ValueAct reportedly exits the shareholder register

Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LON:RR.) shares shed 3.8% at 243.6p on reports that hedge fund, ValueAct, has sold down its stake.

The Financial Times reports that ValueAct, which once had a stake of just under 10%, has exited the company some five years after becoming the aerospace engineer’s biggest shareholder.

The FT said ValueAct started reducing its stake in December of last year when its representative on the board, Brad Singer, quit the board.

9.30am: Scapa raises outlook after overdoing the coronavirus caution

Scapa Group PLC (LON:SCPA) jumped 26% higher to 115.41p in early deals on Friday after the group raised its full-year trading profit guidance.

The wound care and medical devices specialist said revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year was well ahead of the board’s expectations.

The group added that it is seeing continued improvement across both of its divisions.

Newmark Security PLC (LON:NWT) announced two new customer wins in its Human Capital Management (HCM) division in the United States, sending its shares 18% higher to 1.45p.

The US business, branded GT Clocks, landed the wins. The first contract is for three years and has a minimum contract value of US$1mln in that period. The other contract win is with an existing customer to provide the company's flagship device, the GT-10, to one of the largest retailers in the US. Newmark estimates it could potentially worth US$3.8mln over the next 2-3 years.

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Newmark Security PLC (LON:NWT) has announced two new customer wins for its Human Capital Management (HCM) division in the United States, branded GT Clocks. The US business has landed a deal for its GT-4 timeclock product with one new client, a healthcare management firm which provides human resources and payroll solutions that works with more than 30,000 businesses. It is a three-year contract and has a minimum value of US$1mln over that period. The other contract win is with an existing customer to provide the company's flagship device, the GT-10, to one of the largest retailers in the US. Newmark estimates it could potentially worth US$3.8mln over the next 2-3 years.

Adamas Finance Asia Limited (LON:ADAM) said portfolio company, Future Metal Holdings Limited successfully completed its Mining Licence renewal on August 6, 2020, after securing all necessary approvals from the local Ministry of Natural Resources in China. The renewed Mining Licence has a validity period of three years and permits a maximum annual dolomite production capacity of 300,000 tonnes, the group noted. FMHL is a natural resources company which operates an open-pit dolomite quarry in Shanxi Province, China.

SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited (LON:SAE) said it has now signed a heads of terms agreement concerning the joint venture (JV) it announced yesterday. The JV, NPA Fuels Limited, is with N&P Holding 2 Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Dutch recycling specialists, the N+P Group. The NPA JV will principally be involved in the marketing, production and delivery of waste-derived fuel pellets to converted coalfired power stations throughout the UK, and in particular the Uskmouth project.

IQ-AI Ltd (LON:IQAI), the neuroimaging specialist, has said treatment priorities are returning to something approaching normal following the disruption caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. “The company has entered an exciting phase in its development, and we look forward to updating shareholders as events unfold,” Trevor Brown, the company’s chief executive told investors in IQ-AI's half-year report. Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company maintained its momentum in the first half of 2020. It said the most notable feature of the half-year was the artificial intelligence development work underway to fully automate the processing and display of its subsidiary, Imaging Biometrics’ (IB) quantitative biomarkers for brain tumour assessment.

OKYO Limited (LON:OKYO), which is developing treatments for dry eye disease and chronic pain, has appointed one of America’s leading eye surgeons to head its scientific advisory board. He is Dr A James Khodabakhsh, the medical director of the Beverly Hills Institute of Ophthalmology and chief of ophthalmology at the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre. His remit is to bring together a small group of leaders in the field to “review and inform” the company’s plans to progress its lead product candidate, Chemerin, to the investigational new drug stage for dry-eye disease.

SDX Energy PLC (LON:SDX), the MENA-focused oil and gas company, has announced that as a result of Cantor Fitzgerald Europe closing certain elements of its corporate finance function, its corporate brokers are now Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited and Peel Hunt LLP. The company's Nominated Adviser will continue to be Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited.

Feedback PLC (LON:FDBK), the specialist medical imaging technology company, announced that it has granted options over 13,498,748 new ordinary shares, representing 1.27% of the company's issued share capital, to its CEO, Tom Oakley. The CEO Options are exercisable at a price of 1.2p at any time up to the tenth anniversary of the date of grant.  One-third of the CEO Options vest immediately, one-third will vest one year from date of grant and the balance will vest two years from the date of the grant. Oakley now hold options over 22,820,829 Feedback ordinary shares, equivalent to 2.14 % of the company's voting rights. In total 60,330,829 options are now outstanding, representing approximately 5.65% of the company's current issued share capital.

APQ Global Limited (LON:APQ), an emerging markets growth company based in Guernsey, said it has issued a total of 26,578 ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the company to employees as part of the 2018 management share-based compensation scheme, including to its chief executive officer, Bart Turtelboom, who has received 23,366 ordinary shares. The price used in calculating the number of shares awarded under the 2018 Scheme was the book value per share as at December 31, 2017, of 128.11 US cents. Following this issue, Turtelboom is interested in 22,238,659 ordinary shares in the company representing 28.39% of the issued share capital.

Coinsilium Group Limited (AQSE:COIN) the Blockchain, DeFi and Crypto Finance venture operator, has announced the release of a new investor presentation covering its recently announced DeFi Strategy, together with further details of the company's operational activities in the sector. A Pdf version of this presentation entitled 'The New Crypto Finance Opportunity' can be downloaded from the Coinsilium website via the following link: https://coinsilium.com/investors/presentations. To accompany the presentation, a video run-through hosted by Coinsilium's chairman Malcolm Palle and chief executive Eddy Travia is available for investors. The video is available in full on YouTube via the following link: https://youtu.be/IZkOwjZ9MU4. Palle commented: "With the forthcoming launch of our new DeFi Strategy we are now moving into a period of intense activity. Investor awareness and engagement is of critical importance in this process as we work to ensure a greater understanding of the scale of the opportunity that lies ahead for Coinsilium and where the Company is positioned with its global partner network at the forefront of this exciting new space. We will continue to build our investor engagement throughout this period with enhanced marketing & communications initiatives and we look forward to providing further updates to the market over the coming weeks and month."

Amryt Pharma PLC (LON:AMYT) (NASDAQ:AMYT), a global, commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing novel therapeutics to treat patients suffering from serious and life-threatening rare diseases, has announced that it will present at the Canaccord Genuity Virtual 40th Annual Growth Conference on August 13, 2020. The presentation will be broadcast live at 3pm (ET) / 8pm (BST). Investors can access the webcast via the following link: https://wsw.com/webcast/canaccord42/amyr/

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