Small caps round-up: Axis-Shield, Cluff Gold, Falkland Oil...

15th Mar 2011 09:55

Diagnostics company Axis-Shield turned over more than £100m for the first time last year and has paid a maiden dividend.Revenue rose 5% to £101.7m in 2010, though underlying profit fell from £8.1m to £7.1m. Profit, including £3.1m of currency and disposal gain in 2009 dropped from £11m to £7.5m.There's a dividend of 1p per share and trading so far in 2011 has started well and in line with market expectations despite some "currency headwinds". West Africa focused miner Cluff Gold started fresh exploration at its wholly-owned Baomahun gold project in Sierra Leone."With five drill rigs due to be operating at Baomahun during Q2 2011, this represents the most ambitious drilling programme undertaken to-date at Baomahun. We look forward to reporting the results from this exploration work in due course," boss Peter Spivey said.Falkland Oil and Gas spent $21.8m on exploration in 2010, including $19.7m on the Toroa exploration well. The full-year loss narrowed to $3.7m from $5.5m and cash at the end of December stood at $69.8m. "Our focus is now on securing a suitable deep water rig to enable us to drill the large prospects we have identified in the deep water areas of our licences," chairman Richard Liddell said. "Rig contract negotiations are at an advanced stage and we will make a further announcement when appropriate." Oil explorer Range Resources has drilled the Cotton Valley objective section to a depth of around 5,500 ft (1,680m) in its Ross 3H #1 Well at the East Texas Cotton Valley Project. Mud logging results have been "encouraging", with oil shows over an interval more than 400 feet thickness, including oil in the mud pits while drilling.Berkeley Resources, the miner of radioactive heavy metal uranium, chose a bad day to release interim results, with the market declining sharply on fears of a nuclear disaster in Japan. The company saw revenue from continuing operations tumbled to $0.13m in the six months to 31 December 2010 from $0.41m the year before. The loss for the half year surged to $11.7m from $5.0m a year earlier, after exploration costs associated with the company's Spanish uranium projects jumped to $9.3m from $3.4m in the latter part of 2009.Dealogic managed to shrug off the market slide Tuesday after the provider of software to investment bankers reported higher profits and revenues for the year to 31 December.Pre-tax profits rose by 6.4% from the previous year to $38.59m (about £24m) on revenues that were up by 11.6% to $103.55m."Our business successfully weathered the downturn in market activity during the financial crisis and we have seen a steady improvement in the business environment since the second quarter of 2009," chairman Peter Ogden said. "We have a proven track record of effectively managing through short term market disruptions and the long term prospects for our business remain strong."Web services group IS Solutions also saw profits and revenues rise in the year to 31 December and said it is seeing project work return to pre-2010 levels.The firm, whose services include web analytics and content management, posted pre-tax profits of £758,000, up from £665,000 the previous year on revenues that rose to £10.98m from £9.78m.Big screen renter Avesco cut losses sharply in its latest quarter and said activity in its markets has picked up. Revenue rose to £30.5m in the three months to December from £23.8m with losses reducing to £0.5m from £1.8m. "It does appear that a real momentum has returned to the business and that the investments and actions that we have taken in positioning the business for the longer term are beginning to bear fruit. As we move towards 2012 and the London Olympics, we look forward to an exciting period for the Avesco Group, " Civil engineer Cyril Sweett has agreed tie-up agreements with Washington DC based Alpha Corporation and New York City based VVA, as part of a strategy to expand internationally. Personal insolvency consultant Fairpoint says the second half of 2010 and the early part of 2011 saw a reduction in demand for debt solutions after the strong start to 2010, though it expects this to change as a consequence of cutbacks and interest rate rises. Fairpoint made a profit of £5.85m, up from £5.72m, in 2010 on revenues of £29.4m. The dividend for the year is 3.5p.Antenna manufacturer MTI Wireless posted flat sales of $13.5m in 2010, but says they picked up in the second half. There was an operating loss of $0.65m compared to profit of $0.1m in 2009. "With resumed growth in our key market in the second half of 2010, revenue streams for the business improved and we substantially grew our order book. As a result, we entered 2011 with a record order backlog ($5.4m) which is more than double the backlog we had entering to 2010. This trend has continued so far in the first two months of 2011 in which our order book has grown by a further $2m," MTI said. Scottish gold miner Scotgold Resources saw loss before tax in the second half of 2010 narrow to £0.56m from £0.61m the year before. Cash and cash equivalents declined to £1.1m at the end of 2010 from £1.6m the year before.