Small caps round-up: Tough times at Individual Restaurant

28th Jul 2010 11:37

Shares in Individual Restaurant fell sharply after the owner of the high-end Piccolino and Bar & Grill chains said extreme weather early in the year and the football World Cup will cost the company about £600,000 in pre-tax profits in the current year.Vending machine group SnackTime saw pre-tax profits in the year to March 31 soar to £1.2m from £200,000 the previous year as sales jumped by 73% to £11.5m.'This has been a transformational period for SnackTime with the acquisition of the Snack in the Box business not only removing a major competitor, but also providing us with a much greater footprint and presence in our chosen markets,' said chief executive Blair Jenkins.Philippines-focused oil and gas explorer Forum Energy saw a sharp narrowing in losses in the half year to June 30.Pre-tax losses narrowed to $285,000 from $1.24m as revenues soared to $2.5m from $203,000.Synchronica shares jumped 10% after the provider of mobile email and messaging technology said the mobile subsidiary of Telecom Argentina has launched an email service based on Synchronica's 'Mobile Gateway.'Coms gained on news it has launched a new division to support Microsoft's unified communications products, known as Office Communications Server (OCS). Construction components and software group Eleco dropped after warning that the group's full year loss before non-recurring items and reorganisation costs is expected to be significantly worse than anticipated due to a significantly greater than anticipated losses from its Building Systems operations.Investors cheered news that Norman Broadbent traded profitably in the six months ended 30 June 2010.Aviation charter services company Air Partner saw its shares take flight on Wednesday after it said trading in the final quarter of its financial year had continued the healthy trend seen in the third quarter. The company now expects the full year outcome will be ahead of the expectations at the time of the company's interim management statement in June.Alpha Securities, which invests in hedge fund managers, saw revenue in the year to 31 March 2010 rise to £0.44m from £0.34m the year before, but loss before tax ballooned to £0.50m from £0.014m a year earlier. Net assets grew 23% to £3.2m from £2.6m at the end of March 2009.Healthcare software specialist Avia Health Infomatics saw loss before tax in the year to 31 March 2010 widen to £0.32m from £0.22m in the 13 months to 31 March 2009. Revenue eased to £1.75m from £1.88m in the 13-month period a year earlier. The challenging market conditions experienced in the company's core UK markets during 2009/10 remain and latterly additional pressure has been placed on these markets by the announcement of proposed public sector spending cuts. "Whilst these uncertainties remain we expect, in the short term, to continue to see a slowdown in our core UK markets," the company said.Fund manager RAB Capital ran into more problems in the first half of 2010 with losses rising to £3.3m from £2.75m. Funds under management fell to $1.26bn from $1.35bn in December, with more assets being withdrawn after the half-year end."The uncertainties in the global markets, and the challenging asset raising environment, mean that it is too early to predict an outcome for the full year. That said, the group achieved some encouraging fund performance numbers in the first half which should provide a better context for asset gathering as the year progresses," RAB said. There is an interim dividend of 0.10p against 0.6p.