Speech recognition specialist Eckoh has secured a three-year contract with hotel and restaurant giant Whitbread, making it one of the group's largest clients to date. Eckoh will provide its payment card industry data security standard service to Whitbread's hotel brand Premier Inn, which is due to deployed in March 2011. No financial information is provided. Weapons manufacturer Manroy has announced its admission to AIM on Wednesday. This comes as a result of a reverse takeover of Manroy Systems by Hurlingham Plc. The group also raised £6m through a placing of 8m shares at 75p each. "Admission to AIM is an important next step for us as we pursue our plans to grow Manroy and unlock the potential of this successful business," said Manroy CEO Glyn Bottomley. "We will continue to capitalise on our strengths and further expand both geographically and in terms of our products."Gold miner Ortac Resources Ltd says that its pre-tax loss for the half year ended September was $0.48m, more than triple the $0.15m reported last year.The company previously named Templar Minerals, changed its name after acquiring Ortac Resources for $1.3m in August.Africa-focused diamond Paragon Diamonds has bought African Rock Resources for 12.5m shares and says the Mabuki Diamond Licence has been renewed through to October 2012. "I am pleased to announce the successful completion of the acquisition of African Rock Resources Ltd which will further increase our expanding asset portfolio," managing director Stephen Grimmer said. "We will begin exploration work in the near future and remain confident of the Mabuki Licence potential for both hard rock and alluvial deposits".Cubus Lux, which develops tourist resorts in Croatia and Montenegro, saw pre-tax losses grow to £1.4m from £0.6m in the six months to 30 September on revenue down to £679,000 from £965,000.Executive chairman Gerhard Huber said financial and credit markets remain at a slower pace to 2008, causing "challenges" in securing necessary finance, although at least one of several financing options being negotiated is expected to be finalised early in the New Year.Shares in miner Beacon Hill Resources received a lift from an update on the development of its Arthur River magnesite project in north-west Tasmania.Completion of a ground magnetic survey has resulted in a new interpretation of the dolerite dykes which suggests that there is potential to expand the current measured resource of 13.2m tonnes of magnesite.The group intends to commence a drilling campaign in the first quarter of 2011 with the objective of developing a better understanding of the ore body, including the increase of the overall size of the current resource. Miner Sunrise Resources has now completed a first phase of drilling at its Long Lake Gold Project near Sudbury in Ontario, Canada. Past production of 56,000 ounces of gold at the high grade of 11 grammes per tonne gold was recorded at this project before the mine was closed in 1939. Drill core continues to be submitted for analysis and the results of the drilling and geophysics are expected during January 2011.Diversified UK equity investment trust British Portfolio Trust saw its net asset value per share increase by 14.9% to 146.9p in the year to 31 October 2010. Over the same period, the FTSE All-Share index rose 13.6%.The total return to shareholders with net income re-invested was 19.6%, according to historical financial information provider Datastream.
