AIM shell company Digital Barriers has made its first acquisition since joining AIM three weeks ago. The shell will pay up to £2.5m for Security Applications Ltd, which supplies thermal imaging equipment for perimeter surveillance. This is the first step in Digital Barriers' strategy to provide products and services in the homeland security sector. Initial consideration of £1.65m will be paid in cash with a further £350,000 payable if certain performance conditions are met for the year to July 2010 and up to £500,000 on the same basis in 2010-11. Security Applications made an operating profit of £370,000 on turnover of £1.95m in 2008-09.Digital Barriers raised £20m of new money at 100p a share on 4 March.Northbridge Industrial Services reported lower 2009 profits but it says that there are signs of improvement. The equipment rental and sales company's core customer base is resources and power generation. Rental demand is increasing and there are more enquiries for the equipment Northbridge manufacturers. Revenues declined from £15.7m to £12.7m in 2009. Equipment sales fell from £8m to £5m. A delay in the start of the Jabali zinc project in Yemen hit also revenues. This project should start later this year and the minimum service period for the supply of transformers and generators has been extended from 12 to 36 months. Pre-tax profits fell from £2.97m to £2.21m. Rental business has higher margins and it is becoming increasingly important. Nanoco has received a $2m milestone payment from a major Japanese corporation. The company's quantum dots technology achieved the performance criteria set out by the customer, which is developing next-generation LEDs for solid state lighting. Sorbic acid and potassium sorbate producer Sorbic International has been hit by production problems. Late last year, a power shortage due to snow and the improvements to a water treatment plant disrupted production for a total of 19 days. In January, more snow hit production over seven days. Excluding these disruptions, trading is in line with expectations. The interim results will be published in late May. Broker Arden partners says that market volumes continue to be low but the corporate finance deal and flotation pipeline is still encouraging - although dependent on market conditions. The Core Business has changed its name to Chalkwell Investments following the completion of a company voluntary arrangement. The company used to supply beauty products but is now a shell looking for opportunities in the natural resources sector. The shares returned from suspension and ended the day at 25p a share. However, there had been a share consolidation on the basis of 30,000 old shares for one new share, so this represents a fall of 1475p a share. Telecoms software supplier Artilium's revenues fell by two-thirds to £1.2m in the six months to December 2009. The operating loss declined from £2.6m to £1.1m thanks to lower admin costs. IT services provider SciSys returned to profit in 2009. A loss of £1.16m was turned into a profit of £510,000 on revenues that were 9% higher at £41.7m. The total dividend for the year is 1p a share and SciSys is targeting a yield of 2% or more. Strong cash generation boosted net cash to £2.4m at the end of 2009.
