Small caps round-up: Berkeley Minerals, Chromex, Empyrean...

Berkeley Minerals, which reprocesses tailings at Kabwe in Zambia, has raised a total of £170,000 through a placing of 17m new ordinary shares at a price of 1p per share.In addition, Wills & Co will be issued 943,396 shares at the mid market share price of 2.12p on 9th November 2009 in lieu of £20,000 of fees for the provision of research and investor relations services. Chromex Mining has signed a binding Heads of Agreement to acquire 49% of Falvect Mining, a company owned and operating in Zimbabwe. Under the terms of the acquisition, Chromex will have the exclusive right to co-develop all Falvect chrome concessions in the Shurugwi region and tribute agreements in the Ngezi area, and market 100% of the chrome products produced from those operations. In return, the Company will provide working capital into Falvect.Empyrean Energy has been advised by Krescent Energy, the operator of the Riverbend Project in Texas, that multiple fractures have been encountered that have all exhibited significant gas flares and influx of gas into the drilling mud. Although highly encouraging, these gas kicks require extreme operational caution and necessitate drilling to be momentarily stopped whilst the gas that has invaded the drilling mud is circulated out of the well. Mariana Resources is to raise £2.6m at a price of 13p per share. The Company's broker, FinnCap, in conjunction with GMP Europe (acting as co-broker) have collectively registered demand to place approximately 12m new shares. The company's Nomad, RFC, has also received indicative commitments to place a further $1m of shares."The level of interest in the new discovery at Calandrias Sur has been overwhelming. An accelerated follow-up field program has been designed to deliver a better understanding of the Project's potential," John Sutcliffe, managing director of Mariana said. Skywest Airlines, the Australian and South East Asia regional airline, said its load factor in October improved to 57.45% from 52.16% a year earlier. The figures exclude charter passengers.Charter traffic, measured by Charter Available Seat Kilometres, increased by 17.27% year on year.North London football club Tottenham Hotspur made a £56.5m profit on player transactions in the year to 30 June 2009, enabling it to send pre-tax profit rocketing from £3m last year to a record £33.4m.Revenue declined slightly to £113m from £114.8m the year before. Profit from operations excluding football trading and before restructuring and depreciation slipped to £24.1m from £35m the year before. The company is not paying a final dividend this year.