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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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Christie Group PLC - London-based financial, inventory and systems services provider - Revenue for half-year to June 30 jumps 52% to GBP28.6 million from GBP18.8 million a year before, and firm swings to pretax profit of GBP1.2 million from loss of GBP6.0 million. Says "excellent" results in the Professional & Financial Services division were partially absorbed by "unavoidable losses" in Stock & Inventory Systems & Services. "That rate of loss in SISS has already been significantly stemmed following the reopening of the hospitality sector. These results confirm our continued recovery which began in the third quarter of 2020," it says. As hospitality sector bounces back from pandemic, Christie looks ahead to "strong and profitable" second half. "If the current Professional & Financial Services division performance continues, we would expect to exceed the current market operating profit expectation for the year," says Christie.
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Open Orphan PLC - London-based pharmaceutical services company - Revenue for first half of 2021 jumps to GBP21.9 million from GBP6.4 million year-on-year, resulting in swing to pretax profit of GBP1.5 million from loss of GBP6.8 million. Hails this move to profit, and says losses "consigned to the past". Improvement in revenue reflects six active challenge studies in the period versus two a year ago, as well as a solid performance in Early Clinical/Biometry Services. Full-year guidance is for GBP40 million in revenue and Ebitda profitability. "While 2021 will represent record revenues for the company and a return to full year Ebitda profitability, it is somewhat behind analyst expectations as the anticipated Covid-19 challenge studies will now likely commence in 2022 on foot of the successfully completed quarantine phase of the Human Challenge Programme characterisation study," Open Orphan says.
Separately on Monday, says subsidiary hVIVO has signed a GBP5.7 million contract with a specialist biotechnology company developing therapeutics for respiratory viral infections, to test its antiviral product using the hVIVO Influenza human challenge study model. It expects to sign more contracts in this area as attention switches to potential future Influenza outbreaks.
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N4 Pharma PLC - Derbyshire-based pharmaceutical company developing Nuvec for cancer treatments and vaccines - Books pretax loss of GBP973,216 for first half of 2021, widened from GBP585,045 a year ago. This is mainly driven by increase in research & development costs, to GBP602,927 from just GBP213,869 year-on-year. No revenue registered in either period. Says it continued with strategy of three work streams: optimisation; in vivo studies; and other applications. "The first six months of the year has seen an acceleration in our understanding of the capabilities of Nuvec following our optimisation work. This has been coupled with our first MTAs which, in turn and together with results elsewhere, led us to review the scope of the recently commenced in vivo work with Evotec pushing some of this work into the second half of this financial year," says Chief Executive Nigel Theobald.
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Frenkel Topping Group PLC - Manchester-based investment advice company - Revenue for first half of 2021 rises 93% to GBP8.5 million from GBP4.4 million a year ago, and pretax profit jumps to GBP1.3 million from GBP495,000. Assets under management stand at GBP1.11 billion on June 30, from GBP962 million a year ago. "Frenkel Topping has enjoyed strong organic growth and delivered GBP73m of new investment mandates in the first half of the year, in addition July saw significant new mandate wins giving us confidence in our full year performance," it says. Second half of the year has started well and trading is in line with internal expectations. Lifts interim dividend by 6% to 0.34 pence.
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Gresham House Energy Storage Fund PLC - London-based utility-scale battery storage investor - Net asset value per share 109.89p at June-end, up from 102.96p at December 31. NAV total return of 10.0% during the period and share price total return 11%. Dividends for the half total 3.5p, in line with a year ago and leaving firm on track for 7.0p full-year target. "Half-hourly power price volatility has remained high as renewables continue to take market share, increasing the intermittency of electricity generation and so the need for energy storage," it notes. Separately, agrees new five year GBP180 million debt facility with a syndicate of banks including Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Lloyds Bank, NatWest and Santander.
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US Solar Fund PLC - owns and operates solar power assets in North America - Net asset value per share at June 30 USD0.943, down from USD0.970 at the end of December. "The operating portfolio performed well in the first half, with generation within 0.9% of budget. Above-budget performance in Oregon and Utah was offset by underperformance due to contractual curtailment in California and utility outages and maintenance in North Carolina," it notes. Says NAV per share fall due to lower US merchant electricity price forecasts, reflecting Covid uncertainty at the time these forecasts were released during 2020 and early 2021. "Since the period end, US merchant price forecasts have trended upwards again due to a reduction in Covid-related sentiment and an increasingly bullish outlook for carbon pricing to 2050," US Solar Fund says. Declares quarterly dividend of 1.25 cents, bringing the total for the six month period to 2.5 cents. Confirms full-year payout target of 5.5 cents.
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Deltex Medical Group PLC - Chichester-based medical probes maker - Revenue for six months to June 30 GBP1.1 million, down slightly on GBP1.2 million a year before. Pretax loss slims to GBP531,000 from GBP578,000. Says trading was challenging, as expected, in the first half. However, notes preliminary encouraging signs of probe sales increasing month-on-month, albeit from a low level, as elective surgery rates recover. "We expect activity in the second half to be stronger than in the first half due to increased levels of elective surgery around the world and continuing stronger performance by our international division," says Chair Nigel Keen. Adds that global supply chain disruption is "extremely frustrating".
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BlueRock Diamonds PLC - diamond mining company which owns and operates the Kareevlei diamond mine in South Africa - Revenue for first half of 2021 rises to GBP2.8 million from GBP1.3 million year-on-year, while pretax loss narrows to GBP512,914 from GBP2.7 million. Reports 34% increase in tonnes processed to 221,000 and 79% increase in carats produced to 8,949. Looking ahead, it says: "The impact of Covid-19 on the supply chain of rough diamonds in 2020 and early 2021 a combined with the opening up of the retail markets as the global economy ramped up has resulted in a strong market in the first half of 2021...The market remains firm, and we anticipate good prices in the second half of the year."
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Ingenta PLC - Oxford, England-based provider of software and services to media - Revenue for six months to June-end GBP5.1 million, down slightly from GBP5.2 million a year prior. Pretax profit nudges up to GBP374,000 from GBP362,000. Puts profit improvement down to "efficiency gains", and says it will continue this strategy. "Recurring revenue remains strong and is being driven by a streamlined implementation methodology, which was successfully rolled out in our Content business and is now being deployed across Commercial projects. Whilst new sales activity remains difficult to predict, we have a pipeline of new opportunities from both existing and new customers which we look forward to converting in the coming months," Ingenta says. Introduces progressive dividend policy with interim 1p per share payout.
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Metals Exploration PLC - Philippine gold producer - Revenue in first half of 2021 is USD62.4 million, rising from USD52.9 million a year ago. Swings to pretax profit of USD6.0 million from loss of USD1.3 million year-on-year. Gold production rises 11% to 35,316 ounces. Says ongoing impacts from the pandemic do not appear to threaten the medium and long term viability of the group's operations.
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Wilmington PLC - London-based information services provider - Revenue for financial year ended June 30 stable at GBP113.0 million versus GBP113.1 million the year before. Swings to pretax loss of GBP2.0 million from profit of GBP6.4 million. Operating expenses increase to GBP117.6 million - as company books GBP14.8 million impairment charge - from GBP104.5 million. Dividend reinstated in the year, with final payout of 3.9p bringing total dividend to 6.0p, versus nothing the year before. Says trading in first two months of new financial year encouraging, with both revenue and profit in line with expectations.
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Jade Road Investments Ltd - pan-Asian diversified investment vehicle - Net asset value per share USD0.90 at June 30, down from USD0.95 a year ago. Total income rises to USD1.3 million from USD1.2 million. "The company's portfolio has continued to weather the pandemic storm with the company's investment manager, Harmony Capital, driving phase two of a three-phase investment strategy focused on exits, restructuring our legacy assets and seeking investments in smaller fast growing companies at IPO or pre-IPO stages," says Chair John Croft.
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NB Private Equity Partners Ltd - private equity investment company managed by Neuberger Berman - Reports net asset value per share of USD28.36 as at August 31, representing year-to-date total return of 30%. NAV per share at June 30 was USD28.65, up from USD22.49 at the end of December. "Constellation Automotive and Autostore drove significant value for the portfolio in the first half of 2021. Constellation owns webuyanycar, Cinch and BCA Marketplace, and is Europe's largest vertically integrated digital used car marketplace. Autostore is a market-leading automated storage and retrieval system which uses warehouse robots for 24/7 order fulfilment. As our two largest investments, we hold material positions in both companies and are very optimistic on their future prospects," says Paul Daggett, managing director at Neuberger Berman.
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By Lucy Heming;Â lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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