Small caps round-up: ASOS, Japan Leisure Hotels, Vertu Motors......

28th Sep 2010 17:12

Non-executive director Karen Jones has taken advantage of the recent ASOS share price dip to buy 4,500 shares in the online fashion retailer. She acquired the shares at £10.98 each. Japan Leisure Hotels, which rents rooms in Japanese hotels by the hour, is trading at little more than half of its underlying net asset value of 77p a share. Revenues fell from Yen591m to Yen515m in the six months to June 2010, because the Yokkaichi hotel was closed for renovation for the majority of the period. Price cutting has also hit parts of the sector. A profit of Yen14m has turned into a Yen36m loss. There is £1.1m in the bank. Fraud prevention software provider Norkom is linking up with Mastercard, which will offer the AIM-quoted company's fraud management product as a value-added service to its customers. Mount Engineering says it is considering its position following the indicative bid approach of Cooper Safety, a subsidiary of Cooper Industries. Redhall has made an agreed bid of 70p a share. The board wants to understand the details of Cooper's proposed 78p a share bid and is seeking clarification from the bidder. Vertu Motors has acquired two motor dealerships from Lookers for £3.9m in cash. The dealerships are both in Cheshire. The Altrincham site offers Renault and Nissan vehicles and the Macclesfield site has Renault and Ford franchises. The Macclesfield site is near to Vertu's recently purchased Vauxhall dealership. The deal, which adds £22.5m of turnover, takes Vertu to 74 sales outlets. Carbon-reduction specialist Camco International moved into profit in the first half of 2010, as it reduced administrative expenses. The company posted a continuing profit of €0.6m compared to a loss of €18.2m for the prior-year period.They fell by 10% to €8.7m, and total revenue of €11.0m, more than double last year's €5.0m.Camco has recently teamed up with a US investor to finance an initial project pipeline of €43 million into six emissions-to-energy projects in the agricultural sector.Edenville Energy's pre-tax losses for the first half ended 30 June rose to £119,882, from £94,945 last year. Net assets for the African coal exploration and development company, however, grew to £928,975 from £414,121. After securing 3 coal deposits in Southern Tanzania in the second half, chairman Simon Rollason commented that their objective is now 'to efficiently evaluate and define a shallow coal resource during 2011 and develop open pits mines for potential domestic thermal demand and export markets.'Compliance and technical building service supplier Managed Support Services has exchanged contracts to acquire ECS for £3.2m. ECS is a provider of specialist mechanical and engineering services for corporate and commercial buildings, primarily within the M25 region.Porvair, the specialist filtration and environmental technology group, has announced a contract to supply leaf disc filters to Lindaur, which makes speciality machines used in the packaging industry, in 2010 and 2011. The contract, with sales revenues in excess of £1m, is expected to further strengthen its Microfiltration division's order book.