TRADING UPDATES: Residential Secure Income acquires 39 new homes

(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Wednesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:

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Empyrean Energy PLC - Western Australia-based oil & gas explorer and producer with assets in China, Indonesia and US - Set to proceed with the second phase of exploration at the Block 29/11, offshore China, and to participate in the drilling of the Topaz prospect. Empyrean is the operator of Block 29/11 and holds a 100% working interest during the exploration phase, though, in the event of a commercial discovery, its partner China National Offshore Oil Company may assume a 51% interest in the development and production phase. The proposed drilling of the Topaz prospect follows results from the Jade well. Chief Executive Tom Kelly says: "Whilst we are extremely disappointed with the results of the Jade well, we have made significant investment of resources and time in systematically maturing the prospectivity of this large block. Empyrean's early assessment is that the much larger Topaz prospect remains a world class conventional light oil target that, based on existing understanding of available data, will be drilled."

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Edenville Energy PLC - London-based developer of Tanzania's Brownfield Rukwa coalfields - From February 1 to April 30, sells 610 tonnes of washed coal and 453 tonnes of fines. Says operational issues impacting production at the 100% owned Rukwa coal project in Tanzania are being addressed. Adds this will allow it to achieve its production rate targets. Notes growing demand for coal at increasingly favourable prices.

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Residential Secure Income PLC - Bristol-based real estate investment trust focused on retirement living and shared ownership homes - Acquires 39 newly completed homes in South London for GBP7.5 million from a local authority housebuilder. Acquisition will complete in a staggered manner over the next few months to ensure the properties are ready for occupation. All homes to be sold on shared ownership 999-year leaseholds. Homes are expected to deliver an annual rent of GBP300,000. Managing Director Ben Fry says: "This is the second acquisition since our GBP15 million equity raise in February 2022 and, alongside the acquisition of the 182 shared ownership portfolio announced in March, completes the investment of the new equity and associated debt within a three-month period."

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Argo Blockchain PLC - London-based cryptocurrency miner - Says its wholly-owned subsidiary Argo Helios LLC has entered into additional loans under Argo's equipment financing agreement with NYDIG ABL LCC, a subsidiary of New York Digital Investment Group LLC. Argo Helios will get up to USD70.6 million as part of the additional financing.

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Live Co Group PLC - Surrey, England-based live events, entertainment and sports events company - Signs streaming concert contract with Doors Live AB. The contract covers the streaming of the KPop.flex festival in Frankfurt in May. It will be on a pay-per-view basis throughout the world but excluding South Korea. Doors will be responsible for the packaging, marketing and sales of the festival for streaming purposes and will also be responsible for technical support. Doors retaining between 38.5% and 35% of the revenue generated, dependent on volume of streaming tickets sold. Seoul Broadcasting Service will retain between 1.5% and 5.0% and Live Co will retain the remaining 60%.

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Rambler Metals & Mining PLC - Surrey, England-based copper and gold producer - Reports mineral resource estimate for the Ming Mine at March 31. The new mineral resource estimate includes 23.76 million tonnes of measured and indicated resources grading 1.80% copper and 0.35 grams per tonne of gold, containing 945 million pounds of copper and 271,000 ounces of gold, at a 1% copper cut-off. The mineral resource estimate has added an additional 20,000 tonnes of copper in the measured and indicated categories compared to the May 2021 estimate, representing a 5% increase. Chief Executive & President Toby Bradbury says: "We will continue to in-fill drill as the starting point of our mining process. To date, all the work we have completed has confirmed and improved the overall quality and quantity of our mineral resources, all of which are open at depth."

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Botswana Diamonds PLC - Dublin-based exploration & project development company focused on Botswana and South Africa - Announces the results of its ground geophysics survey on its Thorny River property in South Africa. Discovery largest anomaly to date with a kimberlite pipe of 25 metres in diameter. Plans drilling for July to August.

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Ilika PLC - Romsey, England-based solid-state battery technology - Concludes its scale-up study with partner Comau, part of Stellantis NV, and another partner "in the industrial automation field". Study reviewed Ilika's Goliath pre-pilot line and has delivered a plant design for a Goliath manufacturing line at a mega-scale facility. Ilika receives a GBP276,000 grants towards the cost of this project. The project will scale up production capacity to 2 megawatt hours per year from 50 kilowatt hours per day. Company expects project to be fully operational by the final quarter of 2023.

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Ondo InsurTech PLC - West Midlands-based company that detects micro-leaks of water - Further expands its roll out of its LeakBot products in Denmark by signing an agreement with Forsikringsselskabet Privatsikring AS to market the products to its non-life insurance customers. Privatsikring is now LeakBot's third insurance partner in Denmark. LeakBot is an end-to-end internet of things solution which protects homes from the impact of water damage, Ondo explains.

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Castings PLC - West Midlands, England-based iron castings and machining firm - Expects results for the year ended March 31 to be slightly ahead of market expectations. Explains that demand from the commercial vehicle sector, representing 70% of its revenue, was impacted by supply chain disruption. As a result, company says its customers were unable to build sufficient heavy trucks to satisfy their order books. Adds unpredictable and sudden changes to the customer schedules has caused inefficiencies which has put pressure on margins. Says it is well placed to satisfy increased demand currently coming through.

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Restore PLC - Redhill, England-based document management and IT recycling business - Acquires 100% of Ultratec Holdings Ltd for GBP9.4 million. Ultratec is a provider of data erasure and physical data destruction services, technology recycling solutions, hard drive parts supply and hardware maintenance services. For the year ended March 31, Ultratec achieved revenue of GBP7.6 million and pretax profit of GPP1.2 million.

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By Heather Rydings; heatherrydings@alliancenews.com

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