Small caps round-up: Huntsworth, Porvair

19th Nov 2010 15:31

Shares in public relations outfit Huntsworth fell back after it said some of the revenues it had expected to come in this year will be delayed until 2011.It also announced that finance director Tymon Broadhead is stepping down to be replaced by Colin Adams, currently finance boss at the Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury.Specialist filtration group Porvair moved ahead after signing a deal worth $40m over 10 years with Parker Aerospace to provide filtration systems for Parker's on-board aircraft fuel tank inerting systems.Housebuilder and land dealer Gleeson interest has continued to improve with visitors recently up over 15%, private completions up 26% and overall unit sales up 47%. In addition, selling prices on most sites have improved ahead of management's expectations. Mortgage availability, however, continues to be limited, constraining the number of sales that can be completed. Planning permission was granted in July 2010 on the Gleeson Strategic Land's 93 plot site at Crawley Down, West Sussex and contracts for the sale of the site have since been exchanged. The continuing restrictions on mortgage availability and the adverse impact of the Government's spending review on consumer confidence mean that conditions in the housing market continue to be difficult, Gleeson added.Loudspeaker group NXT's revenue for November was in line with expectations, being lower than the same period in 2009 due to the continued decline from licensing and royalties. Royalties from the legacy business for automotive exciters and BMRs in TVs made a useful contribution to income. Component sales are doing well, and revenues from the first Audio platform sales are ahead of schedule and will feature in the results for current period, NXT said.Russia-focused industrial property group Raven is seeing strong demand from tenants in key markets for Grade A warehouse property in good locations. "The business is trading in line with management expectations. The Baltia sale, for $42m gross, was an attractive opportunity to sell a smaller property, demonstrating the embedded value within the portfolio. The overall quality of our estate is helping us to exceed our lettings targets in an improving market," Raven added.Shares in oil and gas group Ascent Resources rose Friday morning after it announced it secured a one year loan facility of £2.1m with investment fund YA Global Master SPV, to contribute to the financing of its Pg-11 well in Slovenia. "Pg-11 in Slovenia is an important well and whilst the main effort is in the evaluation of the Miocene gas reservoirs, we expect that it will be completed as a producing well and then brought into production as soon as possible", said managing director Jeremy Eng.Also announced was the £7m standby equity distribution agreement facility with the same company that can be drawn over a period of up to three years in exchange for the issue of new shares in Ascent.Broker Evolution announced it continues to trade profitably and generate cash earnings despite "ongoing difficult market conditions" in the second half. While corporate income is ahead of the first half run rate, full year investment banking profit is expected to be significantly lower than 2009. The broker notes that fixed income revenues are much reduced on an exceptionally good prior year due to tougher equity market trading conditions.