Small caps round-up: Flying Brands, President Petroleum, Densitron...

10th Mar 2011 14:48

Retailer Flying Brands blamed winter weather, a drop in profits at the garden business and bigger losses at the gifts unit for a plunge in profit during 2010.The garden division saw profits fall to £1.34m from £1.81m, while the gifts business lost £0.81m compared with £0.21m a year ago. Winter weather delivered a £0.55m hit.President Petroleum slumped Thursday after the oil company decided to plug and abandon the Kafoury 3 well in Louisiana."We took the Kafoury 3 well as far as we deemed commercially viable and whilst the decision to plug and abandon the well is clearly disappointing, we have now spudded [started drilling] the exciting high impact Northumberland 2 well in South Australia," chairman Stephen Gutteridge said.Information display systems manufacturer Densitron Technologies says orders, sales and margins in 2010 were "substantially ahead" of 2009. However, operating profit will be in line with market expectations, excluding the loss of £1.3m made from the disposal of its 24.48% shareholding in Evervision Electronics in October."We are pleased that the growth experienced in the first half of 2010 was maintained throughout the year. We are confident that the growth will continue in 2011 and we will see a continuing improvement in the trading performance of the company," says chairman Jan Holmstrom.Full-year revenues at building services group Managed Support Services (MSS) are expected to be below market expectations and flat on last year at £26m, as a result of exceptionally low activity in December and January, exacerbated by contract losses in smaller, regional accounts. MSS also announced that it will be consolidating all its Southern England-based operations, to be managed by Environmental Control Services, which it acquired in September. The integration of the units will results in exceptional costs of £0.35m.Equipment rental firm Speedy Hire has secured an agreement with supermarket giant Tesco to supply its contractors working on refurbishments and build programmes throughout 2011 and 2012. The agreement is estimated to be worth £12m.Jarvis Securities, the financial administration outsourcers, saw revenue rise by 16% to £5.41m in 2010 from £4.65m the year before as client numbers increased by 29% year on year. Profit before tax eased to £1.62m from £1.69m in 2009. The full year dividend is 9p. The company remains cash generative and debt free."Early indications in 2011 are that base rate increases will be coming soon. This, allied with increased cash under management has improved our year on year interest income, and we will benefit from any further interest rate rises on deposits in 2011," said company chairman Andrew Grant. "The business is positioned to continue to grow our revenue streams off a low marginal cost base. We will continue to focus on organic growth, opportunities to diversify our income streams and further improve the robustness of our business model," Grant pledged.London Metals Exchange (LME) trader Mentum saw losses narrow in 2010 to $5.5m from $14.7m in 2009, despite total group revenues sliding to $15.6m from $20.1m.As at the end of the year, the group had cash balances of $1.7m, up from $1.3m at the end of 2009. "The board has now undertaken a fundamental review of the business which has concluded in the complete reshaping of the group's cost base which will be considerably lower and takes it back to its profitable core trading revenue stream. We are in the process of minimalising all other costs of the related group businesses including asset management and non-metals trading desks," the company said.