Traders Cafe with Zak Mir: Blackbird, Canadian Overseas, PipeHawk, Pluto, Riverfort, Sabien

After an update from Pires (PIRI), it was the turn of fellow investment company Riverfort (RGO) to update the market – given that it has 17% of the next generation investment group. Perhaps key here was news regarding Pluto Digital Assets, which was a bumper raise earlier this year. Indeed, we heard from Pires that that Pluto has made good progress to date and was well positioned to proceed with its planned IPO. RGO also has an investment in Pluto, representing a holding of over 3% in the company. RGO will be providing a further update on this and its other investments when it releases its interim results later this month.

Sabien Technology (SNT) has been in focus since the beginning of the year when Executive Chairman Richard Parris paid a premium to top up his stake in the company to 10%. The latest 80% share price rise has underlined his confidence in the energy efficiency technology company, in the wake of the announcement of an agreement with City Oil Field Incorporated of South Korea. The agreement provides that Sabien acts as an exclusive sales agent for COF in the UK, with non-exclusive rights in other territories, for an initial period of 1 year. A longer-term relationship is anticipated, and future sales targets have been agreed in outline. Some in the market were suggesting that the deal could deliver a market cap of £20m - £25m for Sabien going forward, as compared to the present £5m, even after the latest share price rise.

There was more of the slow burn higher for shares of Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL), as traders seemed to be determined to take shares of the “giant killing” international oil and gas group at least back towards the suspension price of 0.38p back in March. This is on the basis of the upgrades in production, assets and oil price over the past six months, which so far do not seem to have been factored into the company’s valuation. It would also appear that the stock overhang, from traders taking profits in COPL to make up for losses elsewhere in the market since the Q1 bubble, has finally been churned out. A break of the 50 day moving average at 0.37p may also bring in momentum traders, with the stock being positively reappraised following a Vox Markets interview with CEO Arthur Millholland yesterday.

Another stock which appears to have had the benefit of a Vox Markets CEO interview has been Blackbird (BIRD). Shares of the cloud native video editing platform Blackbird® rose over 12% as CEO Ian McDonough underlined the opportunity afforded to the company by its new licensing strategy, and the positive read across from a recent $1bn takeover of a sector peer, as compared to Blackbird’s present £130m market cap. Blackbird announced its first contract with a major U.S. media company in signing up CBS Sports, part of ViacomCBS, as a client earlier this summer.

Shares of PipeHawk (PIP) have been on a generally upward trajectory since the time of the company’s trading update in August. At the time it could boast unaudited turnover for the second six months to 30 June 2021 was approximately £4.1 million compared to the unaudited turnover for the first six months to 31 December 2020 of £2.6 million. This was as a result of improved trading at QM Systems and Thomson Engineering Design, and PipeHawk said it was in negotiations with potential landlords for two of our businesses, QM Systems and Thomson Engineering Design, to relocate them to premises with manufacturing capability in excess of three times the current facilities.