Small caps round-up: Acta, Hampson, Leni Gas & Oil ...

20th Jul 2010 12:35

Clean energy products group Acta has signed an agreement to supply generators that produce clean hydrogen to Girelli Bruni, a company that installs equipment on forecourts of petrol stations in Italy.Aerospace group Hampson has appointed US national Norman Jordan, chairman and chief executive of Labinal, a subsidiary of French defence and aerospace group Safran, as its new chief executive.Oil and gas group Leni Gas and Oil has raised £1.5m from a placing of 75m shares at 2p a share. It will used the funds for oil production operations in Spain.Shares in oil group Xcite Energy jumped after it said had entered into a contract for a rig to drill a well in the Bentley field in the North Sea. 'With an expected spud date around the middle of September subject to the current rig programme, this will enable XER to complete the intended 9/3b-R well programme as planned in 2010,' it said.Ukrainian farmer Landkom is on target to break even over the full year on an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation basis, after slashing losses andd overheads at the interim stage.Loss before tax in the six months ended 30 April was £4.43m versus a loss of £16.6m the year before, while revenue grew to £1.93m from £1.86m a year earlier. Comparative figures cover the January to June period of 2009, as the company has recently changed its financial year end.Queens Walk Investment. the investment company focused on stable returns, saw its net asset value (NAV) per share edge up to €3.73 at the end of March from €3.69 at the end of December, due to fair value write-ups of €0.1m.The investment portfolio continued to generate more cash between 1 April 2010 and 30 June 2010 than anticipated. Cash proceeds received from investments of €6.7m in the quarter exceeded the estimate of €4.0m. The company plans to use the quarterly cash received from investments to further its strategy of selectively purchasing mis-priced bonds in the asset based securities markets, especially in the mezzanine segment of the market.Mobile phone messaging technology group Synchronica is buying Canadian rival iseemedia for C$8.3m (£5.3m) in shares.The deal, to be completed by the end of August, will extend Synchronica's contracted addressable market of 40 mobile operators (660m subscribers) by 193m from four contracts with large operators in India and South-East Asia, giving a total addressable market of 853m subscribers.Printer ink technology specialist Xaar says first half revenue is ahead of last year, but higher than expected product introduction costs could hit earnings.Panmure Gordon is forecasting interim sales growth of 7.6% and has cut earnings per share forecasts for the full-year by 5.9% to 5.2p due to an estimated £300,000 of extra costs.But the broker keeps it 'buy' rating and 140p target price ahead of numbers on 18 August.Fund manager Syndicate Asset Management (SAM) has narrowed its loss before tax for year ended 31 March to £2.5m from £19.07m in 2009.A long-running reorganisation of the business, which has £5.8bn under management, is now largely complete and revenue for the first quarter is up about 8% to £9.2m.That's lifted the company to a profit before tax of £300,000 for the three months to 30 June compared with a loss of £280,000 this time last year.Jewellery maker Abbeycrest has breached its profit covenants with its senior lender, Burdale Financial and is working to reset them. The group is also in negotiations to increase its facilities with Siam Commercial Bank. In the period March to July, the Essentials and Brands divisions remained exposed to the rising gold price, which impacted overall consumer demand, the group's margins and its working capital funding requirement, Abbeycrest added.African Aura Mining's Nkout iron ore prospect has been defined by a major geophysical anomaly covering at least 8km of strike length. A further 12km of targets generated around Nkout, considered to be moderately magnetic, with a Phase one 4,200m 10 hole drilling programme to commence imminently.Christie Group has been appointed by Starwood Capital to advise on the sale of 18 UK hotels. The assets for sale comprise 17 'Campanile' assets and one 'Première Classe' branded property, an estate totalling 1,549 bedrooms.