(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Tuesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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Permanent tsb Group Holdings PLC - Irish financial services firm - Says activity in the third quarter, ended September 30, increased, particularly in its mortgage business. Tsb saw EUR900 million total new lending, down 23% year-on-year as Covid-19 impacted all new lending activity, while new mortgage lending dipped 22% to EUR800 million. The lender's net interest income was down 6% year on year, with a "stable" performing loan book, despite the lower new lending volumes. Permanent tsb said its active management of costs was partly offset by the reduced income from non-performing loans due to loan sales in the second half of 2019 and lower income from the maturities of higher yielding treasury assets. Year-to-date net interest margin was at 1.73%, 2 basis points lower than at the end of the first half, which reflects the low interest rate environment and the growth of liquid assets. Fully loaded CET1 ratio at September 30 is 14.3%. Expects 2020 new lending to be about 70% of 2019 volumes.
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Victoria PLC - flooring designers, manufacturers and distributors - Says recently announced month-long lockdown in England will make "little material difference". Trading in recent months exceeded the board's expectations, with sales for the 3 months to October 3 recovering above both management's pre-Covid budget - which included the anticipated benefit of productivity investments made over the previous 18 months - and last year's levels. The board believes this favourable outcome is a result of people spending more time in their homes and working remotely. "This trend is encouraging increased investment by consumers in home redecorating, as well as driving new home purchases across all the markets where the group trades," Victoria adds.
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Nucleus Financial Group PLC - Edinburgh-based financial wrap platform - Enters binding agreements to buy UK business and assets of Genpact Wealth Management UK Ltd, which operates as OpenWealth, based in Glasgow, for total cash of GBP1.5 million. Nucleus said the deal will be funded from its existing cash, and expects to close the transaction by the end of 2020. "The acquisition is the next step in the company's journey to have increased control over its processes, service offering and product development while continuing to licence its core Sonata software from Bravura," Nucleus adds.
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Omega Diagnostics Group PLC - sells wide range of specialist products, primarily in the immunoassay, in-vitro diagnostics market - Notes the National Medical Products Administration, formerly the China Food & Drug Administration, has approved the company's Food Detective test for self-test use in China. "The company will support its distribution partner to ensure that Food Detective achieves commercial success in China as an approved home-use test," Omega adds.
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Telit Communications PLC - internet of things and machine to machine communications company - Confirms Dbay Advisors Ltd has made an preliminary approach for the firm. Telit has also received a preliminary approach from Lantronix Inc. The Lantronix proposal was considered by the board of Telit, together with its financial adviser, Rothschild & Co, and rejected. However, the company remains in discussions with Lantronix to explore a possible transaction which could be in shareholders' interests. The consideration for any offer, if made, is likely to be Lantronix shares. "There can be no certainty that an offer will be made by either party nor as to the terms of any offer, if made," Telit adds.
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Supply@Me Capital PLC - fintech company providing monetisation service - launches, together with iMass Investments, a Shari'a compliant version of its inventory monetisation platform. The platform, launched for one of Europe's largest banking groups, is compliant with Shari'a rules from both an inventory funding and client company perspective, and together with iMass, has agreed to support SYME through the formal authorisation process.
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Independent Oil & Gas PLC - UK gas company targeting high returns - Awards rig contract for its core project phase 1 to a subsidiary of Noble Corp. This follows a competitive selection process by IOG's drilling and contracting teams, assisted by well management contractor Petrofac, involving extensive technical and commercial evaluation across several drilling contractors. The Phase 1 drilling campaign is scheduled to commence in the first quarter 2021 and, subject to actual well durations over the five wells, is expected to last into the second quarter of 2022, with first gas scheduled for the third quarter 2021.
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Oxford Metrics PLC - software company servicing government, life sciences, entertainment and engineering markets - Expects to report revenue of GBP30.3 million and adjusted pretax profit of GBP2.5 million for the year ended September 30. "The group's fundamentals remain strong, supported by an encouraging pipeline of opportunities across both divisions and a strong balance sheet which together underpin confidence that the group will continue to successfully navigate current challenges arising from the pandemic," firm adds.
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Oxford BioDynamics PLC - proprietary epigenetic biomarker discovery platform - Enters strategic partnership with Boca Biolistics, a US-based biorepository, reference lab and contract research organisation. Under the terms of the agreement, Oxford BioDynamics will receive a diverse range of blood samples from Covid-19 patients, with detailed clinical information on disease severity. These will add to Oxford BioDynamics' existing database of over 500 UK and US samples. Financial details of the partnership are not disclosed.
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G3 Exploration Ltd - holding company which owns Greka Gas China Ltd - Is moving to full liquidation from provisional liquidation in order from the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands. Suspends its listing on the London Stock Exchange, as a result. Liquidators to decide whether firm is insolvent or not.
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Argo Blockchain PLC - UK-based cryptocurrency miner - Applies to court form approval of capital reduction following resolution passed at annual general meeting. Court meeting to take place November 10.
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Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd - mining company focussed on production from, and expansion of, the high grade Gakara rare earth project in Burundi, East Africa - Signs binding agreement for co-development of the Phalaborwa rare earths project in South Africa with Bosveld Phosphates Ltd. The project comprises approximately 35 million tonnes of gypsum resulting from historic phosphate hard rock mining, containing rare earth elements with an estimated average in situ grade of 0.6% total rare earth oxides, based on previous sampling campaigns. A total consideration of USD750,000, in a combination of cash and shares, shall be paid by Rainbow to Bosveld in three equal tranches over twelve months, with the first tranche being payable after completion of an initial due diligence process. The due diligence process is expected to last up to 35 days and a further announcement will be made on completion of the due diligence process.
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Triple Point VCT 2011 PLC - small and medium sized enterprises investor - Venture share class completes three investments, as well as a follow-on investment into an existing portfolio company. This takes the total number of qualifying investments made to date to 18. An investment of GBP500,000 was made into a data company with an engine that processes geospatial and regulatory data. An investment of GBP500,000 was made into an insurance platform. An investment of GBP200,000 was made into a company providing an infrastructure monitoring platform.
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GRC International Group PLC - holding company for a group of companies providing a range of products and services to address the IT governance and risk management - Notes legal, risk and compliance consultancy subsidiary releases new, privacy as a service solution that is designed to help organisations efficiently manage their compliance requirements under privacy regulations such as the general data protection regulation.
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Braemar Shipping Services PLC - provides technical expertise and professional marine and energy services - Makes new strategic investment in Zuma Labs, a software development company operating in the shipbroking and trading technology space. Since early 2020, Zuma Labs has been working closely with Braemar's Shipbroking and Dry Freight derivatives businesses.
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By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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