Sylvania has maintained annual production guidance despite Q324 results being affected by a 22-day strike, resulting in 10% lower production. The PGM basket price was stable during the quarter, with positive platinum momentum offset by palladium weakness and rhodium prices stable.
1Spatial’s FY24 results reflected robust momentum for the enterprise business and continued improvement in the revenue mix, with investment in growth suppressing margin and cash generation.
As well as providing a further positive 36-2R well update, Zephyr has today detailed its retirement of US$3.88m (£3.11m) of existing debt through issuance of 64.05m new ordinary shares (c.3.7% of the enlarged capital) to SGR Investments, LLC (‘SGRI’) at a price of 4.85p per ‘Repayment’ share.
Molten Ventures has recently completed the acquisition of Forward Partners, which allowed Molten to further broaden its portfolio, add a complementary strategy focused on earlier stage companies and potentially provide a pipeline of new core holdings.
Melrose Industries continues to deliver strong performance improvements and is on track to achieve its ambitious margin targets in 2025 (Engines 28% and Structures 9%). As a focused aerospace group, Melrose is also benefiting from the positive long-term drivers in the sector with record civil order backlog. This bodes well for continued earnings momentum and cash generation to drive shareholder value.
Ahead of FY24 results to be published on 23 May, Picton Property Income has declared a Q424 DPS of 0.925p, a 5.7% increase on the previous quarter. The company intends to maintain fully covered dividends at the new level, an annualised run rate of 3.7p, well above the pre-pandemic DPS and the 3.5p paid in respect of FY24.
Petro Matad provided an operational update on 25 April. The company continues to be frustrated in its attempts to get central government to complete the certification process confirming the exploitation area for Block XX as State Special Purpose Land.
Invinity Energy Systems (IES) develops Vanadium Flow Batteries (VFBs) for utility-scale grid storage. The Group’s next-generation Mistral VFB technology, jointly developed with Gamesa Electric, launches in H2 2024 to provide grid-scale longer-duration energy storage (LDES) as renewable generation increases globally.
The Pebble Group’s AGM update confirms that trading is in line with FY24 expectations, with attractive opportunities for its two distinct businesses in the large, fragmented promotional products sector. Facilisgroup is a SaaS business, helping North American distributors to optimise their operations, with access to an approved supplier roster.
Cobra Resources is an exploration company focused on developing a rare earths deposit in South Australia, with a potentially low-cost method of production through in situ recovery (ISR).
Avacta’s FY23 revenues increased to £23.2m (FY22: £9.7m), driven by Diagnostics revenues of £21.2m (FY22: £4.2m) which included a full year of Launch Diagnostics and c 7 months of Coris Bioconcept. Therapeutics revenues were £2.1m (FY22: £5.5m) with the prior year including more milestones.
IG Design Group’s trading update for the year ended 31 March 2024 has exceeded market expectations in terms of both profitability and, most significantly, cash generation. The FY24 results confirm the progress the group has made on its strategic journey to simplify the business and improve operational efficiency.
Notwithstanding its sector ‘sweet spot’ (a healthy, customisable product at a competitive price), Tortilla Mexican Grill (Tortilla) has taken the opportunity of a change in management to refine its strategy to address challenges since its successful IPO in 2021 as well as expedite growth.
The Merchants Trust’s (MRCH’s) manager, Simon Gergel at Allianz Global investors, is very excited about the number of reasonably priced opportunities available in the UK market. Also, good income generation from the trust’s portfolio of high-quality companies with robust fundamentals enabled MRCH to record another consecutive dividend increase in FY24; it now has a 42-year track record.
eEnergy’s FY23 results are in line with expectations, having been well flagged in the March update. Recent months have seen the balance sheet transformed by the disposal of Energy Management and growth capacity materially enhanced by a £40m project funding facility with NatWest.
Epwin’s FY23 results were robust and management navigated inflationary pressures well. Despite some market headwinds, we have increased our FY24 and FY25 underlying operating profit estimates for the second time this year.
Loungers has announced record FY24 Sales of £353.5m, up 24.7% and 22.2% excluding the 53rd week.
Thruvision’s year-end trading update confirms revenues broadly in line with our expectations at c.£7.8m, and an EBITDA loss of c.£2.5m. There is good momentum from both new and existing clients, with Thruvision reaping the benefits of a broad customer base, spanning a number of international markets.
Destiny’s full-year results for the year ending December 31 2023 included news of a strategic review of the options for its lead program XF-73 nasal. Cost-controls and reduced clinical trial spend at this point in the development of Destiny’s assets reduced the loss for the year.
Norcros’s disposal of Johnson Tiles is the latest strategic activity taken by management to better allocate capital to fit with priorities. Last year it closed its UK adhesives operation.