(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Tuesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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Boku Inc - California, US-based mobile payment and mobile identity company - Says revenue for the first half of 2021 is expected to be at least USD34.0 million, an increase of 37% year-on-year. Total payment volume was USD4.0 billion in half-year, an increase of 29% on a year earlier, with 29.7 million monthly active users of the Boku platform in June, a 46% increase.
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Arena Events Group PLC - London-based event solutions provider - Secures contract to deliver one of the venue clusters at the XXII Commonwealth Games, to be held in Birmingham in 2022. At a high level, this contract award includes the planning, design, schedule management, building control services, supply, installation, maintenance and removal of a range of structures, seating and associated infrastructure.
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Cloudcall Group PLC - Leicester, England-based computer telephony integration firm - Says total revenue for the six months to June 30 was up 10% to GBP6.4 million, with recurring and repeating revenue representing 94% of total revenue. The company notes strong recovery in recruitment industry driving new business sales growth acceleration across the first half of 2021. Cloudcall says it remains in a strong position and with operating expenses carefully controlled and tracking in line with plans, it is confident in delivering its full year guidance for 2021.
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Eurocell PLC - Alfreton, England-based UPVC products provider - Says "good" performance reported for the first four months of the year continued in May and June. Sales for the six months to June 30 were GBP168 million, representing a like-for-like increase of 21% compared to 2019 and 34% compared to 2020. The company notes, however, that it is experiencing tighter supply and an inflationary environment, with prices of certain raw materials, particularly PVC resin, rising significantly in 2021.
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Wilmington PLC - London-based publishing firm - Ends the financial year to June 30 ahead of expectations for revenue, adjusted pretax profit and net debt. The company says trading in both the Information & Data, and Training & Education divisions was strong in the six months to June 30, resulting in revenue for the year being unchanged, despite the lack of face-to-face training or events. Revenue excluding events have grown year-on-year in both divisions, underlining the strength of the Wilmington franchise. Full-year adjusted profit is ahead of the prior year as the company benefitted from the swift digitisation of its products and services at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Cash flows have also been notably strong with net debt at June 30 down to GBP17.7 million from GBP27.7 million year-on-year.
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FireAngel Safety Technology Group PLC - Coventry, England-based fire safety firm - Reports improved performance and sales growth in-line with the expectations. Sales are seen to be materially ahead of the prior year period at GBP22.3 million versus GBP16.5 million, with a reduced operating loss of GBP1.3 million from GBP2.7 million. The company says it has continued to deliver against its strategy to expand gross margins, which increased to 24% in the first half of 2021 from 22.2% a year before and from 19% in the first half of 2019. This was driven by a higher sales mix of the company's connected products and planned operational improvements which attract wider margins.
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NAHL Group PLC - Kettering, England-based consumer marketing business - Says revenue for the six months to June 30 is expected to be GBP19.6 million, 3% lower than the prior year, however, the company expects to report pretax profit of GBP600,000 compared to loss of GBP400,000 in the first half of 2020. NAHL also notes it has made good progress with its strategic initiatives during the first half of the year.
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Midwich Group PLC - Diss, England-based AV technology distributor - Says trading momentum seen in the second half of 2020 has continued, with revenue for the six months to June 30 expected to be around GBP390 million, an increase of 29% year-on-year, albeit this does represent a weak comparator due to the onset of the pandemic in the second quarter of 2021. Organic growth was 25% in the half-year. The company says it has seen improvements in product mix and in rebates received, although believes that further gross margin improvements should be deliverable once lockdowns are eased further and the live events, entertainment and hospitality markets return more fully.
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NMCN PLC - Sutton-in-Ashfield, England-based construction engineering company - Continues to make good progress toward publishing a prospectus and circular to convene a general meeting to seek shareholder approval to complete the refinancing at the earliest opportunity. The company also is continuing to work with its auditors to finalise the accounts for 2020.
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Camellia PLC - Linton, England-based agricultural production firm - Expects underlying pretax loss for the first half of 2021 to be narrowed by about 15% than a year ago. This reflects improved profits from Agriculture and the benefit of cost saving measures, which have been offset in large part by the impact of Covid on the markets served by the company's Engineering and Food Services businesses and a softening of activity in the oil & gas markets.
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Landore Resources Ltd - Guernsey-headquartered exploration company - Makes progress on the drilling programme on the BAM gold deposit, Junior Lake Property, Ontario, Canada. The company's targeted drilling has successfully intersected high grade gold in the vicinity of the Bonanza grade quartz vein in drill hole 0421-875. The results from this drilling will assist further targeting of the recently discovered high grade 'footwall' mineralisation. In addition, drilling results confirmed wide, relatively shallow zones of ore grade gold mineralisation within the gabbro 'hanging wall' unit of the extended East pit.
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Hummingbird Resources PLC - London-based miner - Sells 24,790 ounces of gold in the second quarter of 2021 at an average realised price of USD1,802 per ounce. Going forward, the company maintains 2021 production guidance of between 100,000 and 110,000 ounces of gold. Full year production is expected to be weighted towards the second half of the year, in line with Hummingbird's guidance expectations at the start of the year.
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Contango Holdings PLC - UK-based natural resource development company - Says work continues at the Garalo-Ntiela gold project area in Southern Mali. Aeromagnetics and airborne geophysics for the collection of magnetic and radiometric data commenced at the start of July and has been completed across both licences as planned. Results from the survey are expected in early August. The company also reports that the project camp is nearing completion, supporting the permanent presence of up to 20 employees and contractors, along with a secure storage building for drill core.
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Kistos PLC - UK-based low carbon intensity gas producer - Says Borr Drilling's Prospector-1 jack-up drilling rig has arrived at location at the Q10-A field - where Kistos holds 60% interest - and that the company's 2021 drilling campaign is underway. The work programme is scheduled to last approximately four months and to start the process of converting 100 million barrels of oil equivalent of 2C resources into 2P reserves.
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PetroTal Corp - Texas, US-based oil & gas development and production company - Says production averaged 8,825 barrels of oil per day in the second quarter of 2021 which was 2% higher than guidance of 8,655 bopd. Turning to operations, the company says drilling commenced on its next horizontal well on July 12. The BN-8H well should be completed by early September at a cost of USD12.3 million and is expected to boost field production to over 13,000 bopd.
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Verici Dx PLC - US-based kidney transplant tests firm - Initiates its first European clinical validation trial site with Gaetano La Manna, director of the Specialization School in Nephrology and the Dialysis & Transplant Unit, at the Sant'Orsola Polyclinic Hospital in Bologna, Italy. The trial is a global, non-randomised, observational study for the clinical validation of Verici Dx's lead products, Clarava, to predict risk of early acute rejection in the first six months post-transplant and, Tuteva, for the diagnosis of acute cell-mediated rejection.
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Clinigen Group PLC - Burton upon Trent, England-based pharmaceutical products and services company - Signs an agreement to implement a managed access program, being referred to by Horizon as a named patient use program, for UPLIZNA. The UPLIZNA named patient use program is for adult patients with anti-aquaporin-4 antibody positive neuromyelitis optical and related syndromes in countries where UPLIZNA is not approved by the country's local regulatory authority. The program will provide an avenue for physicians - contingent on meeting all eligibility criteria and receiving local health approval - to potentially prescribe UPLIZNA for patients who live in certain countries where it is not commercially available.
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Insig AI PLC - London-based software company - Says undisclosed investment manager has signed an annual license for Insig AI's proprietary Data Tool. This contract win follows successful client testing and enables the client to structure and categorise both proprietary and third-party data, and builds upon the company's recent success in delivering data science products to Royal London Asset Management. Insig AI also says it has set up a US subsidiary in light of the interest it is seeing from US-based asset manager firms.
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Maestrano Group PLC - London-based software firm - Says its geospatial solutions subsidiary, Airsight, has been awarded two new contracts by the Australian Northern Territory government. The expected return for Airsight from both contracts is AUD218,000, about GBP117,285. The contracts have been awarded to conduct two large rural road surveying projects in the Northern Territory, and the projects will be utilising light detection and ranging technology provided by Maestrano's other subsidiaries, Cordel and Nextcore. The two projects start this July and are part of major highway upgrades planned in the Northern Territory.
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Intercede Group PLC - Lutterworth, England-based software firm - Says its MyID credential management software is now formally FIDO2 certified. The certification has been awarded after MyID passed faster Identity online alliance interoperability trials. FIDO is a set of open authentication standards backed by technology leaders including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Intel, Facebook and Amazon.
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St Modwen Properties PLC - Birmingham, England-based property investment and development business - Says Brighton Bidco Ltd agrees with RBC Europe Ltd, JP Morgan AG and United Overseas Bank Ltd, London Branch, on the terms of the senior facility. This follows an agreement of takeover by Brighton Bidco of St Modwen Properties announced on June 24. Rothschild & Co, in its capacity as financial adviser to Bidco, is satisfied that sufficient resources are available to Bidco to satisfy in full the cash consideration payable to the St Modwen shareholders under the terms of the acquisition.
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Total Produce PLC - Irish producer of fresh produce - Implements a share exchange so that all shares in the company can be exchanged for new shares in Dole PLC. On Monday, Total Produce said its joint venture company Dole launched the roadshow for its initial public offering in the US. Dole, a newly created company formed for the combination of Total Produce and Dole Food Co Inc, will offer 26.0 million shares, consisting of 23.5 million shares offered by Dole and 2.5 million shares to be sold by affiliates of Castle & Cooke Inc. In 1995, the real estate operations of Dole Food Co were spun off as the newly reformed company Castle & Cooke.
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Ariana Resources PLC - London-based gold exploration and development company - Declares special dividend of 0.35p per share after the completion of the partial divestment of its interests in Turkey. The Company is planning to pay a Special Dividend in three tranches, subject to the completion of the capital reduction process, which is being finalised in July.
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Home REIT PLC - London-based real estate investment trust - Says it has now fully deployed the equity and committed the debt facility raised on and since the company's initial public offering. Given the unprecedented need for more high-quality homeless accommodation in the UK, the company is contemplating a potential further issue of equity. "Our track record of prudent deployment into attractive assets provides a strong platform for future growth, and we look forward to delivering further value for our shareholders," said Jamie Beale, partner at Alvarium Home REIT Advisors Ltd.
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By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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