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(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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MP Evans Group PLC - producer of palm oil in Indonesia - Says crop and production increased once again in 2021, reflecting the benefits of long-term investment strategy and the increasing maturity of its oil-palm plantings. 2021 palm kernel production up 11% at 67,100 tonnes from 60,400 tonnes last year and crude palm oil output up 15% at 312,900 tonnes from 271,700 tonnes. Also declares a special dividend of 5 pence per share.
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Destiny Pharma PLC - clinical stage biotechnology company based in Brighton, England - Says it starts 2022 with a diversified and valuable drug pipeline targeted at infection prevention. Also says preparations for the phase 3 trial of its clostridioides difficile treatment NTCD-M3 are progressing well with potential licensing partners. Further, discussions with regulators over a final-stage trial of its nasal gel XF-73 to prevent post-surgical infections are expected to conclude within this half-year.
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PetroTal Corp - Texas-based oil and gas company - Says production averaged 10,147 barrels of oil per day in fourth quarter, impacted by unplanned and extended downtime of the ONP from social and protest issues at pump stations 1 and 5. October was the only month in the quarter with largely unrestricted production rates, with November and December having only 16 and five producing days, respectively, where all wells were producing fully. As a result of wells 9H and 8H generating large initial production rates in the quarter, PetroTal was still able to average over 10,000 bopd and demonstrate quarter-on-quarter production growth of 7% despite only producing unconstrained for 57% of the period.
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Bankers Investment Trust PLC - aims for capital growth in excess of the FTSE World Index and annual dividend growth ahead of inflation - Reports net asset value per share at October 31 of 120.9 pence from 97.6p last year. Lifts annual dividend to 2.176p versus 2.154p.
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Roquefort Therapeutics PLC - Says research & development subsidiary LYRAMID has identified lead compounds that it will take forward for lab-based experiments to test their efficacy in altering cancer cell properties. Roquefort says further work is currently being carried out to gather more data on the ability of these candidate drugs to modify midkine expression. Recent high-level scientific publications validate Midkine as a critical factor in modifying the tumour immune microenvironment, leading to cancer patients' lack of response to immunotherapies. LYRAMID is exploring the use of midkine inhibitors to reverse the resistance to cancer immunotherapy drugs such as checkpoint inhibitors.
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GRC International Group PLC - Ely, England-based products and services for IT governance, risk management and compliance - Says it intends to conduct a share placing to raise gross proceeds of up to GBP3 million to institutional investors at a placing price of 38 pence each. Net proceeds from the placing will be used to accelerate investment in SaaS and e-commerce platforms with the aim of further accelerating organic growth.
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Pembridge Resources PLC - London-based investor in Minto Explorations Ltd - Says board of directors have reviewed strategic options for the future development of Pembridge and approved the strategy presented by management. Measures set out in 2019 included to strengthen so that it can meet its financial obligations until cash inflows commence from the Minto mine. Bring the Minto mine into operation. Provide Minto with the capital needed to implement improvements and finally to identify new projects to invest in. Company believes first three phases of the strategy outlined have been fulfilled.
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Ruffer Investment Co Ltd - closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey - Net asset value per share at December 31 rises to 287.74 pence from 287.32p the year before
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CIP Merchant Capital Ltd - Guernsey-based investment company - Advises shareholders take no action on Corporation Financiere Europeenne SA takeover offer. CIP on Friday said it has received a GBP30.3 million takeover offer from shareholder and Luxembourg-based investment banking boutique CFE.
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Blencowe Resources PLC - miner focused on developing the Orom-Cross graphite project in Uganda - Consolidated Africa Ltd sells entire 11% stake in Blencowe Resources to new and existing shareholders arranged through Tavira Securities Ltd.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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