Small caps round-up: Bankers IT, Asian Plant, D1 Oils

24th Jun 2010 13:06

Bankers IT says its net asset value per share was 448.7p as at 30 April, up 12.2% from the 399.9p on 31 October. The FTSE 100 rose 10.8% during that time. Profit before tax for the half-year to April increased to £61m from £18m a year ago and compares with £79.9m made in the year to October 2009.Malaysia-focused palm oil plantation firm Asian Plantations lost $1.4m in 2009, up from $402,000 the year before. The company, which listed on London's AIM market in November, wants to grow to a 20,000 hectare-plus plantation by the end of 2011.D1 Oils' sale of its Bromsbrough site for £2.6bn could be in doubt after the prospective buyer failed to come up with the cash. D1 has given the buyer more time but added "Unless satisfactory completion occurs within this short period, the board intends to remarket Bromborough against a backdrop of improving fundamentals for the UK biodiesel industry."HaiKe Chemical cut its losses in 2009 to $1.95m from $29.7m as its new Ruilin refinery became operational. Revenues fell to $591m from $631m. "The first half of 2010 has continued to be challenging with unpredictable market conditions and technical issues with Ruilin in the first quarter, which have now been resolved. As a consequence, Ruilin is now fully operational and we have moved back into profitability in the last two months," HaiKe said.Frontier Mining reports KazCopper, its 50% owned joint-venture company managing its Benkala Copper development project, has commenced construction of its open pit mine. Erlan Sagadiev, CEO of Frontier, commented: "After many years of hard work by the team at KazCopper we are delighted that mine pit construction has now begun and that we are in a position where we can see the finish line."Energy saving technology firm Sabien has been awarded a contract worth £0.25m by Greenwich Borough Council to install its M2G boiler optimisation controllers into 45 council buildings.The share price of Seeing Machines, a developer of advanced vision based industrial systems, plunged on Thursday morning after it warned that revenue in the year to 30 June will be significantly lower than expected.The shortfall is due to the delay of a series of orders that the directors believe will now be received at the start of the next trading period. Property services group Speymill moved back into the black last year but underperformed market expectations because of £0.78m provision for legacy receivables.Profit before tax was £0.54m, versus a loss in 2008 of £6.26m. Turnover tumbled to £39.24m from £66m.The company said it is intent on downsizing its infrastructure plus the nurturing of its Far East activities and its Speymill Contracts business.Specialist insurance and reinsurance broker THB Group saw underlying profit before tax improve to £3.1m in the six months to 30 April from £2.4m in the corresponding period a year earlier. Fees and commissions rose to £24.6m from £23.3m while underlying broking profit climbed to £3.9m from £3.3m the year before. The interim dividend has been bumped up to 1.35p from 1.25p."Notwithstanding the uncertainties of both the global economy and the timing of the hard market, we believe that Lloyd's, as a financially secure subscription market, and THB, as a committed supporter of this market, remain well-placed to benefit from these conditions," said group chief executive officer Frank Murphy.