Small caps round-up: DTZ, New Britain, Purecircle...

30th Oct 2009 12:07

Property adviser DTZ has sold its New Zealand business to Quotable Value (QV), which will operate as an affiliate of DTZ. The deal, which sees gross assets with a book value of £1.5m transferred to QV, is part of DTZ's strategic review, aimed at enhancing the profitability and margins of its core business.Today's news has no material financial impact on the group.PureCircle, a maker of natural sweeteners from the stevia plant, says Firmenich and Danisco have successfully formulated ingredients using stevia as a sucrose replacement, initially in vanilla and lemon sorbet ice cream.The AIM-listed group said this opens up new opportunities for the natural zero-calorie sweetener in the multi-billion dollar global ice cream market.Firmenich recreated the sweetness and flavour performance of full-sugar products by mixing PureCircle produced Reb A with its own ModulaSense technologies.New Britain Palm Oil, which produces the oil in Papua New Guinea, has signed a minimum two year supply deal to provide United Biscuits with significant quantities of segregated, traceable and certified sustainable palm oil.This first supply agreement signed for the firm's UK refinery in Liverpool is due to be completed in spring 2010. Office2office said trading during the period from 1 July to 29 October was in line with forecasts and it expects to deliver another creditable result for the full year.Semiconductor wafers maker IQE has been contracted by US RF products and foundry service provider TriQuint Semiconductor to provide its Gallium Nitride (GaN) wafer products.Latin American focused oil and gas explorer Gold Oil swung to a loss in what it called a challenging year. The group made a loss on ordinary activities before tax of £307m in the year ended 30 April compared with £1.14m last time.