Small caps round-up: Innovation, FDM Group, MCB Finance...

Property and insurance software group Innovation dropped despite saying that full-year pre-tax profit is expected to be within the range of market forecasts. 'Despite reduced claims volumes, customer retention has been good and the pipeline remains strong. Recently announced wins help underpin revenues for 2009 and importantly provide a solid base moving into 2010,' said the group.Innovation also announced that Jane Hall has been appointed as finance director with immediate effect. IT training group FDM Group posted a 7.7% decrease in pre-tax profits to £2.2m after experiencing margin pressure amid tough economic conditions. Revenues slipped to £25.1m from £25.4m. MCB Finance, which offers consumer credit to Finns, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, said it saw repayment rates stabilise over the past couple of months after a period of economic deterioration in the Baltic states.Agriterra has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to buy palm oil developer Equatorial Biofuels from Equatorial Palm Oil for about $12m.Primary Health Properties is at a seven-month high after a 23% hike in half-year operating profit allowed the healthcare facilities group to raise the dividend by ¼p to 8.5p a share.Operating profit before the revaluation result and fair value gain on derivatives referred to below rose to £3.2m from £2.6m. Datong has won its first UK order for the third party products involved in a patent dispute since it resumed marketing activity in Britain following a four month interruption."Whilst not a substantial value, the board believe that the order win represents an important step in re-establishing the group's market position for these products in the influential UK Law Enforcement market," said the intelligence gathering equipment firm.Welsh TV group Boomerang has set up a joint venture with Channel 4 and events organiser Sports Vision called Big Freeze.The tie-up will organise and produce the Freesports on 4 Freeze winter sports and music festival at Battersea Power Station. Boomerang will make three hours of programmes for the second series.Car brake maker Surface Transforms boosted revenue for the year ended 31 May by 34% to £679,284, but pre-tax losses grew to £991,585 from £750,459."The board is cautiously optimistic that it can increase business revenues and reduce losses in the 2010 financial year ending 31 May 2010 and work towards breaking even in cash terms," the group said. Thirdforce said it has received a revised proposal from management buy-out vehicle LearnVantage. The UK E-learning software group said the proposal may or may not lead to an offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of the company.Thirdforce also warned that it anticipates the negative business sentiment to continue to be a feature of the market for at least the rest of 2009 which it said creates 'uncertainty' for the group's revenue and profit levels for the six months ended 31 December and beyond. Environmental engineering company Tinci saw interim profits collapse as difficult market conditions prevented the company getting new projects off the ground. Profit before tax in the first half of 2009 tumbled to RMB 1.17m from RMB 10.54m a year earlier on revenue that slumped to RMB 48.04m from RMB 135.01m.The chairman of Castings says the iron castings maker is now operating at just over 50% of its maximum production levels, up from 40% previously."We hope customer de-stocking is coming to an end and the reported improvement in world economies will lead to an improvement in our markets," added Brian Cooke in today's AGM statement.Bowling Alley operator Essenden, formally Georgica, saw pre-tax profit narrow to £1m from £4.5m before on revenue that fell to £29.5m from £33.3m before.Bid target Inspired Gaming is to become Sisai Group's strategic technology partner for a major roll-out of video lottery terminals in Italy. Gaming machine supplier Inspired will supply a minimum of 2,000 server-based gaming machines with gaming content.