Small caps: Western & Oriental, Monitise, Optos

20th May 2010 13:05

Luxury travel group Western & Oriental remains upbeat despite slumping into the red in the six months to March as it bore the brunt of a range of external problems. The poor state of the UK economy, airline industrial action and continuing riots in Thailand knocked revenue from £28.4m to £24.9m, with losses hitting £999,000 against a profit of £71,000.W&O also warned over volcanic ash disruption, though it expects progress in the seasonally stronger second half of the financial year.Mobile banking software specialist Monitise has processed more than 20m smartphone app banking enquiries and transactions in the last six months. Monitise's mobile apps are now being used at the rate of over a million a week. Monitise mobile apps run on iPhones and handsets from Blackberry, Nokia and Motorola. It is also working on an application for handsets using Google's Android software.Eye test specialist Optos moved back into the black in the half year to March with profits of $1.5m against losses of $4.9m. Revenue fell to $47.3m from $47.8m. Last year's pre-tax numbers were hit by a number of one-off costs and operating profits rose to $4.3m from $3.1m. "We have seen a return to profitability in the first half, with strong cash generation leading to much reduced net debt. Our focus on asset utilisation is yielding encouraging results with a further increase in the average number of optomaps per site. We have continued to make good progress in our R&D programmes and recent positive results from our clinical studies make us increasingly confident for the future of our business,." Chief executive Roy Davis said.Investment company The Niche Group is to raise up to £5.7m through a placing of up to 113.7m shares at 5p a share. The company also announced a strategic investment in Oman Resources, with Niche lending Oman Resources £5.2m. The loan converts, at Niche's option or on the fulfilment of certain specified events, into shares representing 17.33% of Oman's issued ordinary share capital.Niche's loan will enable Oman to fulfil certain of its payment obligations to Arar Petrol ve Gaz AUPAS and SFA Grup Petrol ve Gaz Anonim Sirketi under a farm in agreement in respect of the acquisition of a 50% interest in exploration licence AR/ARR/4077, an area of 49,821 hectares in the Tuz Golu basin in south central Turkey.Sport and entertainment management firm First Artist Corp was lower after widened losses due to impairment costs. Hertford International's shares have been restored to trading on AIM after its CVA was approved on 12 May. "Hertford will be treated as an investing company in accordance with AIM Rule 15 and its name will also be changed to Otium Ventures plc," it said.