Small caps round-up: Filtronic, EMED, Coe Group ...

27th Jul 2009 08:31

Telecommunications technology group Filtronic saw a sharp fall in revenues in the year to May 31 as demand slumped. Revenue from continuing operations fell to £28.8m from £40.1m, but the group posted a pre-tax profit. However, the group moved into a pre-tax profit of £2.3m from a loss of £16.2m after selling its UK defence business.Cooper and gold miner EMED Mining has conditionally placed 38.1m new ordinary shares at an issue price of 7.5p each to raise £2.9m. The proceeds of the placing will allow the group to expand permitting activities at the Proyecto de Rio Tinto project in Andalucía, Spain. It will also be used for the early repayment of the convertible loan with YA Global Investments of approximately £1.4m and fund its on-going drilling programme in Slovakia and for general working capital purposes.Video surveillance technologies firm Coe Group has been awarded a major contract to provide the video surveillance solution for lines 1, 3 & 4 of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway network worth over £1m"The contract which has a revenue value in excess of £1m integrates analogue and IP technologies into a hybrid solution providing a high capacity optically multiplexed analogue backbone for real-time monitoring of all video," said the group.Mobile content software specialist 2ergo has gained access to the Indian market with the acquisition of mobile ticketing and couponing specialist Active Media Technologies, which has operations in London, New Delhi and Mumbai.China-focused video surveillance group BlueStar Secutech said the current financial year has started well despite the gloomy economic outlook.The group suffered delays to orders by Chinese banks due to the financial crisis, but has diversified into other sectors. It also recently won a RMB42m (£3.7m) contract to provide surveillance services to Bank of China in branches throughout the country. Shares in Cyan Holdings were up 20% after the semiconductor company announced a partnership with Future Electronics, one of the biggest electronic distributors in the world, to sell its wireless metering and lighting control products.Global Energy Development, the Latin America focused petroleum exploration and production company, has signed a contract to acquire seismic over the Colombian Rio Verde contract.The contract with Compania Geofisica Latinoamericana covers the acquisition of 18 kms of 2D seismic and 109 kms of 3D seismic, with acquisition and processing expected to be complete during September 2009. The net asset value of European Assets Trust rose by 8% in Sterling total return terms over the six month ended 30 June. Expressed in Euro total return terms, the increase in the NAV of European Assets Trust was 22.4%."This was a reflection more of Euro weakness than of Sterling strength with currency traders concerned about the speed of any recovery across the European continent," said the group.India-based animation and computer game art specialist DQ Entertainment saw revenue rise to $32.25m in the year to 31 March 2009 from $24.13m a year earlier. Profit before tax eased to $5.15m from $7.41m a year earlier when performance was flattered by a one-off exceptional gain of $4.4m. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation advanced to $13.9m from $7.2m.The group said the investment in the expansion of facilities has more or less been completed and the focus of future spending will switch even more to intellectual property rights.Life group Hansard Global's new business fell by 32% in the year to June. Regular premium business fell to £12m APE (2008: £18.5m) while assets under administration dropped by 12% to £1.0bn (30 June 2008: £1.13bn.)"We expect difficult market conditions in the near term and have reflected this in our estimates of the value of new business and European Embedded Value at 30 June 2009, Hansard said. Work scheduling specialist Tracsis is confident that the full year results of the combined businesses will demonstrate increased profitability in comparison to the 2008 results of each standalone entity. The group is also acquiring survey group Peeping for an initial consideration of up to £260,000 payable in cash and the issue of 172,744 ordinary shares of 0.4p each.