14 Sep 2020
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What’s cooking in the IPO kitchen?
Guild Esports a UK-based owner and developer of esports teams, has announced its intention to seek a listing of its ordinary shares to the Standard Listing segment of the London Stock Exchange this autumn. its founding shareholders include David Beckham, former football player and captain of England, and now co-owner of new MLS team Inter Miami CF.
HOME REIT intends to float to the Main Market raising up to £250m. The Company will seek to contribute to the alleviation of homelessness in the UK, whilst targeting inflation-protected income and capital returns, by investing in a diversified portfolio of assets across the UK which will be dedicated to providing accommodation to the homeless. Due Mid October
S-Ventures - The Company will look to identify investment opportunities in the wellness sector within the UK and Europe. Due 16 Sep on the Aquis Exchange.
Sativa Wellness Group—(Canadian Securities Exchange: STIL) renamed from Stillcanna Inc following the conditional acquisition of Sativa Group (AQSE:SATI) to list on the AQUIS Exchange. A fully integrated European seed to consumer CBD group with the pricing, products, and stability to meet the CBD market demand in the medium term. With world-class extraction and formulation experts, an agricultural team that has over 20 years’ experience farming hemp, along with laboratory testing capabilities, the group has established itself globally as a trusted source of high-grade, premium wholesale CBD brands and products.
Umuthi Healthcare Solutions Plc, the technology led healthcare business focused on the distribution of pharmaceuticals and the provision of medical facilities in remote areas, seeking admission to the Standard Listing segment of the Official List
The Hut Group. Expected intention to float on the Main Market. THG is a vertically integrated digital-first consumer brands group, retailing its own brands in beauty and nutrition plus third party brands, via its proprietary technology platform to an online and global customer base. For the year ended 31 December 2019, THG's revenue was £1.1 billion, up 24.5 per cent. year-on-year, and its Adjusted EBITDA was £111.3 million, representing an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.8 per cent . The Company has experienced an acceleration in growth during 2020, with revenue of £676 million, up 35.8 per cent. on the equivalent prior year period , achieved in the 6 months to 30 June 2020, which the Directors believe evidenced the non-discretionary nature of the nutrition and beauty categories .
Kibo Energy PLC, the multi-asset Africa focused energy company, is seeking admission for its 100% owned UK subsidiary Sloane Developments Ltd , which will be renamed Mast Energy Developments PLC (MED), to the Standard List of the London Stock Exchange plc . Targeted for Q4 2020. The MED business strategy is to acquire and develop a portfolio of flexible small-scale power generation assets, exploiting a growth niche market in the UK for Reserve Power generation to balance out the national grid at critical times.
Keystone Law 447.5p £140m (LON:KEYS)
The fast growing, UK Top 100, challenger law firm, today announced its interim results for the six months ended 31 July 2020 .
Revenue growth of 6.5% to £24.5 million (H1-2020: £23.0 million)
· Adjusted PBT £2.2 million (H1-2020: £2.7 million)
· Basic EPS 5.0 pence (H1-2020: 6.3 pence)
· Strong operating cash conversion2 at 133% with cash generated from operations of £3.3 million (H1-2020: £2.6 million)
· Strong cash position and debt free; net cash £6.9m (H1-2020: £6.4m)
· Dividend payments recommenced with two interim ordinary dividends of 3.3 pence per share each declared (total 6.6 pence per share)
In light of the circumstances, the Board is pleased with the performance of the Group in the first half of this year and whilst there remains uncertainty as to what the impact of COVID-19 may be in the second half, it is confident that Keystone remains in a strong position to deal with any challenges and continue to build a strong platform for future growth.
Duke Royalty 26.5p £65.36m (LON:DUKE)
The provider of alternative capital solutions to a diversified range of profitable and long-established businesses in Europe and abroad, announced the successful exit of its £2.0 million investment in Royalty Partner Xtremepush Limited , the Dublin-based B2B technology platform.
Highlights:
· The transaction represents Duke Royalty's first exit, further validating its funding model
· Post exit fees, the investment's IRR is in excess of 22%, with a cash-on-cash return in excess of 1.5x
· Duke retains its warrant over 3% of Xtremepush's share capital, representing further potential upside in the future
Aeorema Comms 20p £1.85m (LON:AEO)
The live events agency, is announced the commencement of a physical presence in North America with the opening of an office in New York. The office will represent the second office for Cheerful TwentyFirst, the Company's events business, and will increase the work force to 24 strong globally.
The opening of an office in New York is a strategic decision by the Board of Aeorema signifying a dedicated approach to supporting the growing needs and requests of the Company's clients in the United States, as well as internationally, as a result of an increase in potential business in the region.
Focusrite 810p £470.7m (LON:TUNE)
The global music and audio products group of companies, supplying hardware and software used by professional and amateur musicians and the entertainment industry, updated the market on a strong trading year in which revenue, profits and cash flow have all grown substantially.
The Group expects revenue for the financial year ending 31 August 2020 to be ahead of market expectations at approximately £129 million, up from £84.7 million last year. This growth comprises a full year of ADAM Audio revenue, acquired in July 2019; eight months of revenue from Martin Audio, acquired in December 2019 and growth of approximately 23% in the core Focusrite Audio Engineering business. Gross margins have improved from the prior year and as a result EBITDA is also expected to be ahead of market expectations.
Cash generation remains a high priority for management and, as at 31 August 2020, the Company had a net cash balance of approximately £3 million. This has improved substantially from a net debt position of £19.9 million as at 29 February 2020.
Silence Therapeutics 463p £383m (LON:SLN)
The specialist in the discovery, development and delivery of novel short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) therapeutics for the treatment of diseases with significant unmet medical need, today announces the appointment of Mark Rothera as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board member, effective immediately. Iain Ross, who has been Executive Chairman since December 2019, has today assumed his previous position of Non-Executive Chairman.
Mr. Rothera brings more than 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with a strong record of commercial and operational leadership, including driving the successful build of multiple biotech companies, predominantly in the field of rare or specialty diseases. Prior to joining Silence, Mr. Rothera served as CEO of Orchard Therapeutics (Orchard), where he oversaw its transformation from a small U.K.-based, privately held company with two clinical-stage programmes into a leading gene therapy company with seven clinical-stage programmes and fully integrated capabilities. Under his leadership, Orchard completed an initial public offering of American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq Global Market and during his tenure that company secured more than $600 million in financing and grew from a market capitalization of $250 million to more than $1.7 billion at its peak.
MTI Wireless Edge 47p £41.6m (LON:MWE)
The technology group focused on comprehensive communication and radio frequency solutions across multiple sectors, announced that its antenna division has secured a framework order totaling approximately $0.5m for a 5G dual band backhaul solution . Supply under this order is expected to be completed in the next nine months.
Frontier IP Group 66p £36.3m (LON:FIPP)
The specialist in commercialising intellectual property, today announces that Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency, has awarded portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics an £84,000 continuity grant to accelerate development of its innovative agricultural robot technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant will be used to support the Company's plans to expand its team and develop facilities amid growing interest in its technology from potential industry partners. Frontier IP holds a 26.9 per cent equity stake in the Company. Fieldwork is currently focused on developing technology to harvest soft fruit and vegetables to help growers worldwide address the widespread issues around human labour shortages.
Reabold Resources 0.665p £47m (LON:RBD)
Reabold notes an update from ADX Energy Ltd, operator of the IMIC-1 well, onshore Romania, in which Reabold has an interest via its 51% shareholding in Danube Petroleum Limited, on the IMIC-1 well test. IMIC-1 was successfully acidised utilising coiled tubing for pumping the acid to the bottom of the well and then circulating the acid and brine in the well to surface utilising nitrogen to enable lifting liquids. The recovered liquids included a sludge material likely to be a combination of dissolved reservoir material and fine reservoir sediments from the reservoir.
Gas flow was observed after approximately 12 hours with a combination of methane and nitrogen coming to surface. The well will now be shut in to observe pressure build up as the reservoir continues to clean up following the acidisation.
Proteome Sciences 3.75p £11.1m (LON:PRM)
Dr. Mariola Söhngen has been appointed as a director and Chief Executive Officer and she will take up the position on September 15th, 2020. Dr Ian Pike remains a director of the Company as Chief Scientific Officer, having also fulfilled the role of Interim Chief Executive Officer until Dr Söhngen's appointment.
Dr. Söhngen has established a strong and successful career in the pharmaceutical industry both in the US and Europe. She was a co-founder of Paion AG which developed a clinical-stage asset for the treatment of stroke and subsequently delivered a novel anaesthetic that received FDA approval earlier this year. Proteome Sciences PLC is a specialist provider of contract proteomics services to enable drug discovery, development and biomarker identification .
Tekcapital 10p £8.8m (LON:TEK)
The UK intellectual property investment group focused on creating marketplace value from investing in university technology, is pleased to announce that portfolio company Guident has acquired a new regenerative shock absorber technology which is designed to extend the driving range of electric vehicles.
Guident has acquired the exclusive license to U.S. patent # 8,941,251 from the Research Foundation of the State of New York. The patent enables the manufacture of electromagnetic regenerative shock absorbers with high energy densities that are able to recover a vehicle's vibration energy which is otherwise lost due to road irregularities, vehicle accelerations and braking. In addition, this unique design utilizing rotary mechanical motion rectifiers can be tuned to achieve better damping characteristics than existing shock absorbers.
This technology received the R&D 100 Award by R&D Magazine, for one of the 100 most significant technology innovations of the year from around the world.
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