Small caps round-up: Timestrip, Mount, Kea...

18th Mar 2010 08:37

Shares in Timestrip slumped after the company which makes labels that show how long food containers have been open said it is considering a sale of the business.Timestrip said it has been constrained by a lack of working capital after approaches to existing shareholders and potential investors failed to drum up enough interest to fund the business with any certainty for the next year.'Timestrip has to consider all other strategic options open to it which includes a possible sale of the business,' the company said.Mount Engineering, which supplies equipment such as valves and insulation materials to the oil and gas industry, saw revenues and profits slip in 2009 as orders declined.Pre-tax profits fell to £1.9m from £2.2m as revenues dropped to £9.3m from £11.8m.Shares in Kiwi oil and gas company Kea Petroleum jumped after New Zealand's government approved an agreement in which Methanex, a supplier of methanol, will contribute up to US$10m to drilling and testing of an exploration well.Shares in Timestrip slumped after the company which makes labels that show how long food containers have been open said it is considering a sale of the business.Timestrip said it has been constrained by a lack of working capital after approaches to existing shareholders and potential investors failed to drum up enough interest to fund the business with any certainty for the next year.'Timestrip has to consider all other strategic options open to it which includes a possible sale of the business,' the company said.Mount Engineering, which supplies equipment such as valves and insulation materials to the oil and gas industry, saw revenues and profits slip in 2009 as orders declined.Pre-tax profits fell to £1.9m from £2.2m as revenues dropped to £9.3m from £11.8m.Shares in Kiwi oil and gas company Kea Petroleum jumped after New Zealand's government approved an agreement in which Methanex, a supplier of methanol, will contribute up to US$10m to drilling and testing of an exploration well.Oil and gas engineering services group Plexus Holdings reported a rise in first-half pre-tax profit to £0.13m from £0.04m previously. Turnover for the six months to December fell slightly to £6.5m compared with £6.7m last year, but the interim dividend is still up by 5.8% to 0.33p per share.Cancer drug developer Antisoma has issued 9.57m shares to certain former shareholders of Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, a company which Antisoma acquired in June 2008. Software group SciSys has been awarded a four year framework contract with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ireland to provide design, development and reporting services in the areas of Regulatory Systems and GIS.Recreational marine electronics firm Raymarine said it is still in breach of its loan covenants despite its banking syndicate agreeing to extend all of the group's banking facilities to 30 September 2010.The company said it remains committed, as do its lenders, to sorting out its funding problems and that it is still in discussions about the possible sale of its subsidiary Raymarine Holdings. The company is also still negotiating over a possible sale of the entire company at around 3.6p per share.ReNeuron Group has signed two more stem cell manufacturing contracts with Angel Biotechnology Holdings in support of ReNeuron's recently approved clinical trial of its ReN001 stem cell therapy for stroke patients.Angel will manufacture drug substance lots of ReN001 for administration to patients in the trial, along with the provision of manufacturing process validation services. The cost of the manufacture is being met by a grant from the UK government's technology Strategy Board. ServicePower Technologies, the outsourcing and workforce optimisation company, slipped into the red in 2009.The company made a loss before tax in 2009 of £4.02m compared to a profit of £0.55m the year before. Adjusted loss before tax, which excludes restructuring costs, foreign exchange effects and impairments on intangible assets, was £1.1m, against a profit in 2008 of £2.5m.Revenue grew to £18.11m from £15.64m, with service scheduling revenues improving to £7.79m from £6.54m while service operations revenues climbed to £10.32m from £9.10m.Gulf of Mexico-focused Leed Petroleum sank into the red during the first half as revenue fell and costs soared.A pre-tax profit of $3.56m during the last six months of 2008 turned into a loss of $10.84m a year later, with revenue down to $11.03m from $15.11m.Net oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids production was 238.5 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe), up from 230.1 mboe last time. Net attributable production averaged 1,036 barrels of oil equivalent per day in January.