Small caps round-up: Tribal, Ffastfill, Capital Lease ...

5th Oct 2010 13:21

Government spending uncertainty has prompted public sector services group Tribal to warn 2010 profits will be 'substantially' below its previous expectations.Government business has seen a further material deterioration in trading conditions in the UK during the past two months with no improvement in the central government market until at least the second half of 2011, it said. Health business has also seen very subdued conditions for UK advisory work as a result of delays and deferrals in procurement decisions. Trading software specialist FFastFill expects a slightly increased first half operating profit on last year's profit of £0.5m despite a £0.7m reduction in income after its largest customer withdrew from the client futures broking business. The second half should be stronger Ffastfill added and management expectations for the full year remain unchanged.Ludgate Environmental's Net Assets decreased to £45.3m and NAV to 98.6p at end June from £50.4m and 110p this time last year. During the year, Ludgate subscribed £11.3m for new investments in the sector. It raised a further £10m after the year end.Aircraft leasing specialist Capital Lease upped profits to $4.4m from $3.9m in the year to June as turnover rose slightly to $16.4m from $16.2m. "Our cost of finance going forward is now lower than last year and the increase in free cash flow places us in a stronger position to take advantage of new opportunities in the future," it added.Crawshaw, the North of England and Midlands butchers chain, saw sales down by a small slice in first half of 2010 from a year earlier, though it saw a much improved sales trend towards the end of the reporting period.Sales in the six months to 30 July were £9.4m, down from £9.5m the year before, with like for like (LFL) sales down 4% year on year, though this represented a sharp improvement on the 8% dive in LFL sales in the year to end-January 2010.The company limped back into profit, with profit before tax of £0.23m, compared to last year's loss of £0.04m. Restaurant group Richoux has raised £2m through a palcing of 25m shares at 4p each. The newly issued shares represent 37.3% of the enlarged share capital of the company. The funds from the placing will be used to buy up restaurant sites and finance the group's restaurant opening programme. Ceramic brakes maker Surface Transforms has signed a development agreement with an unnamed major USA based manufacturer of aircraft wheels and brakes.The agreement relates to the manufacture of carbon ceramic disc brakes for the customer's target aircraft markets, with a current emphasis on the military aircraft sector, and is exclusive for identified specific aircraft programmes within the customer's target market.Cognitive radio networks developer xG Technology has been awarded a six month contract by the US Army to deploy an xMax cognitive cellular network covering a large part of the army's Fort Bliss desert training areas.#Gold mining company Kirkland Lake Gold announced the further expansion in its 100%-owned Maccassa property in Ontario, Canada. The South Mine Complex (SMC) now consists of 25 or more mineralised zones some of which are now in production, while others are being explored and developed."This latest round of drilling not only confirms the strength of mineralisation on the east portion of the SMC, but also increases both the down and up dip components," said Stewart Carmichael, chief exploration geologist.