Small caps round-up: Abbeycrest, City of London Investment, Impax...

25th Oct 2010 17:26

Jewellery maker Abbeycrest has swung to a pre-tax loss of £0.46m for the half year from a pre-tax profit of £1.26m last year.For the six months ended 31 August 2010, group revenue increased by 5% to £18.8m from £17.9m previously. However, this was largely due to the effect of the rising gold price."The average gold price for the period was £788 per ounce, compared to £596 over the equivalent period in 2009. Restating 2010 revenue at 2009 prices would reveal a like-for-like decline of around 10% in the first half year", the group said.Funds under management for City of London Investment increased by 30% to $5.68bn at 21st October, compared with the year end figure of $4.38bn at 31st May. The trading update said that this increase was "driven by the net change in client monies managed together with good investment performance."Shares in Global Petroleum jumped 10% Monday following a drilling update that revealed strong oil and gas shows at the Eagle Ford well. The well will be production tested with results anticipated in the second half of November.Impax Asset Management posted a positive trading update revealing strong overall trading. Shares in the environmental investment manager rose 7% today as the group announced they expected revenues for the year to be comfortably ahead of last year and in line with market expectations, while profitability for fiscal year 2010 to be ahead of consensus.Assets under management and advisory increased 45% from £1.26m to £1.82m. Chief executive Ian Simm said "I believe that our success reported today demonstrates further the attractions of Impax's scalable business model and indicates that we are well positioned for continued growth."Shares in Xcite Energy rose an impressive 23% Monday after the oil company reached target depth for the first part of its planned work programme on the Bentley field in the North Sea.The update reveals that operations have significantly increased the "volume of oil in place".Shares in Beowulf Mining were wanted after the group announced that drilling has commenced on the Kallak South Iron Ore deposit in northern Sweden, in which the board believes there is "considerable potential". The miners also revealed that a letter of intent has been signed for a planned drilling campaign at the company's Ruoutevare project early next year.Australian and South East Asia regional airline Skywest plans to increase the size of jets using the Geraldton regional airport from 50 to 100-seater as early as January 2011. "The Melbourne connection will also see a substantial new market get direct access to Australia's Coral Coast region using Geraldton as the primary hub and regional capital," said local councillor Ian Carpenter.Miner Goldplat's latest drilling programme at the Nyieme Project in Burkina Faso has revealed five holes that returned gold grades in excess of 4 grammes per tonne and one as high as 19.1 g/t."These excellent results reinforce the prospectivity of the Nyieme project, with drilling intersecting high grade quartz veins and confirming the potential of the target structure," said boss Demetri Manolis. "We have identified additional targets on the project and we are now designing the next stage of exploration and will announce this programme as soon as possible."