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Top Director Buys Symphony Environmental Technologies (SYM) Director name: Mr Michael Laurier Amount purchased: 6,691,717 @ 3.00p Value: £200,752

"Our important spring seasons, in particular Easter, lie ahead of us and will be key to the outcome of the full year. We have strong trading plans for spring and an encouraging Commercial order book. We are confident in our strategy and the actions we are taking but remain cautious given the continuing challenge of the economic climate."

Jonathan Hart, Thorntons' Chief Executive, said: "We are pleased with the overall progress made during this key trading period. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of our multi-channel distribution model and our strategy to rebalance our routes to market and revitalise the business as a whole. "We have grown market share and demonstrated the continued strength of the Thorntons brand despite a challenging economy and a weak confectionery market." He continued: "We enter the second half of our financial year with profits in line with our expectations and ahead of last year. Our seasonal lines have sold through well, resulting in stock levels lower than anticipated and below last year at the period end.

UK chocolate company Thorntons proved a big hit over the Christmas trading period as total sales rose 5.4 per cent, according to a trading update Wednesday. The business made £88m in total sales in the 14 weeks up to January 12th - an increase of £4.5m on the same period a year ago - as consumers stocked up on chocolates during the holiday season. Branded commercial sales grew by 26.% to £34.7m. The company's share of the total boxed chocolate market increased from 11.7% to 12.1% and its share of the inlaid boxed chocolate market rose from 33.5% to 35%. However, in its own stores like-for-like sales declined by 1.3% as three shops were closed during the period, meaning it had 27 fewer than a year ago. Franchise sales by £1.1m to £3.0m mainly due to its major franchisee going into administration last May. Direct sales also decreased by £0.7m to £4.8m as it was late in setting up its new website and experienced operational issues which had significant impact on sales in the period.

"Bloomsbury is a robust business, well adapted to the challenges of changing publishing trends and the increasing prominence of the digital market place. Our business is underpinned by an extremely strong author list and we are entering the new financial year with new books by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, two of the world's best selling authors."

"We will begin to have visibility of post-Christmas returns and the important post-Christmas e-book sales over the next six weeks," the group said. "The results for our 2012/13 financial year will be dependent on these and the completion of several contracts under negotiation." The group had net cash of £7.7m at the end of December compared to £10.6m at the end of August 2012. Nigel Newton, Chief Executive of Bloomsbury added: "We are making good progress on many fronts during the transition of the market towards more digital sales. E-book sales are showing strong momentum and we are greatly encouraged by the potential of our online Knowledge Hubs where we have some large deals in progress."

London based publishing house Bloomsbury Publishing said operating profit from title sales rose year-on-year during the four months ended December 31st 2012, despite a two per cent fall in title sales. Operating profit was boosted by lower relative costs, a lower returns rate and as online sales increased, the publisher explained. Key title sales during the period came from Paul Hollywood's How to Bake, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Three Good Things and J.K.Rowling's Hogwarts Library. E-book sales powered ahead year on year, up 58% in the four-month period, with particularly strong growth in the UK. Bloomsbury said the recent expansion of its Information division has contributed to an increasing pipeline of Rights & Services contracts. Budgeted income includes £2.7m from contracts scheduled to complete between now and the year-end.

"PTIA has the leading events serving the Indonesian infrastructure sector, which is earmarked to receive an unprecedented $243 billion of investment by 2025." He added: "The Indonesian market is undergoing a period of rapid change, with a marked shift away from its historical emphasis on consumer events towards B2B exhibitions. As a result we would expect PTIA to experience strong organic growth supplemented by bolt-on acquisitions."

The founders and the existing management will continue to run the business following the acquisition. The consideration will be met from Tarsus's existing cash resources and it is expected to be earnings enhancing in the current financial year ending December 31st 2013 and thereafter. For the year ended December 31st 2011, PTIA recorded an unaudited break-even profit before tax. PTIA's unaudited gross assets as at December 31st 2011 were $0.1m (approximately £0.1m). The acquisition is conditional on normal Indonesian regulatory approvals and is expected to completein the first quarter of 2013. Douglas Emslie, Tarsus Group Managing Director, said: "PTIA is an excellent fit with our strategic objective of quickening the pace of our earnings by investing in fast growth markets.

International business-to-business media group Tarsus has agreed to acquire 51 per cent of Indonesian exhibition organiser PT Infrastructure Asia (PTIA) from PT Event Pro International. Tarsus will pay an initial cash consideration on completion of $0.5m (approximately £0.3m) for the 51% interest, with estimated total deferred payments of approximately $2.4m (approximately £1.5m) in aggregate during 2014 and 2015. Both Tarsus and the vendor have conditional put and call options at various points in 2016 and 2017 in respect of the outstanding 49% shareholding in PTIA. The total consideration for 100% of PTIA has been capped at $23m (approximately £14m). The acquisition provides Tarsus with an important hub in the fast growing Indonesian exhibition market. It is expected to enable the group to develop a range of infrastructure sector exhibitions and provide a platform with which to launch a number of new exhibitions, primarily drawing on Tarsus's existing brands.

Communisis, a company which provides marketing services, has said that full year trading in 2012 was in line with its expectations. The firm said Wednesday that its client-led international expansion has continued during the year with approximately 7.0% of total revenues derived from overseas sources in 2012 (2011: 4.0%). At the year-end, net debt was in the region of £21m, compared to £24.7m at the same date the previous year. In a statement the company said: "The group's pipeline remains strong and the new business that has already been secured, such as the recently announced contract awards by British Telecommunications and Nationwide Building Society, will contribute from early in 2013."

Stephen McLeod, Chief Executive Officer of HTEC, said: "We are delighted that Rontec has chosen us as their service partner. We look forward to supporting one of the UK's leading independent retailers and continuing our long standing relationships with their client sites." Jan Bek, IT Manager of Rontec, said: "Ensuring our sites provide a secure payment environment for our customers is of paramount importance in the choice of partner for our future payment solution. We chose HTEC based on their experience, capabilities and reputation in the payment arena. We look forward to realising the benefits of our enhanced relationship."

Universe Group, the developer of online loyalty systems, has announced that UK fuel retailer Rontec Investments has awarded HTEC, a subsidiary of Universe, a 'Helpdesk and Field Service' contract across its retail network of more than 100 fuel sites in the UK. The company further reported that Rontec had chosen HTEC to provide its new generation of electronic funds transfer, loyalty and fuel card acceptance platform for its network solution. The development follows the consolidation of Rontec's network after the purchase of sites from Total. According to Universe Group, the solution will be based on HTEC's GemPAY payment terminal. GemPAY will handle major credit and debit cards, as well as the latest derivatives of major UK and international fuel cards, which will include Chip and PIN security.

Good day for eua£££££££

"We drilled six exploration wells during 2012 and the pace of our exploration programme has continued into 2013 with a further five exploration wells planned for 2013 as well as five development wells. The company is in an excellent position to maintain its momentum in exploration and to make further investments as we execute our growth strategy through the drill bit."

The group also said the Hyme development is on schedule and production is expected in the first quarter. Once it is on stream it is set to add a 1,000 boepd to current production levels. Graham Stewart, Chief Executive, Faroe Petroleum said: "We are pleased to provide an update on current operations and a look forward to our continuing active exploration programme for 2013. Production in 2012 has been in line with expectations and has funded both our exploration programme and a significant proportion of our development capex. "Aside from our production cash flow, we have robust cash balances and a substantially undrawn debt facility. We expect higher average production rates in 2013, and, as in 2012, we expect that the cash flow from production will fully fund the exploration programme and a large part of the development capex, with the remainder being funded from reserves and our debt facility, as appropriate.

Faroe Petroleum, an independent oil and gas company, has said that total average economic production for 2012 was around 7,200 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), although production in the second half was lower than the first due to temporary unscheduled production shut-downs on the Njord, Brage and Blane fields. The Blaine field also remained shut for almost 10 week as a result of repairs that were undertaken after a gas leak had been detected on the Ula platform to which it ties back. The firm reassured investors that all fields are now back on stream and said production is currently around 8,000 boepd. Looking ahead to 2013, average production is expected to be between 7,000 and 9,000 boepd.

"These research and development projects will strengthen and update our product range, ensuring we maintain our market position and are expected to bring significant revenue growth from 2015.".................................................

Anthony Sethill, Chief Executive, said: "With our market leading position in wireless radio chips, our focus is now on investment in new chip development across our core business units, healthcare (including sport and fitness), digital radio and network audio. "We continue to prove and roll-out our SensiumVitals healthcare monitoring system. This will be updated with the Sensium 2 integrated circuit which conforms to the latest industry standards for body area networks, as well as Bluetooth Smart. "The digital radio business will also benefit from a new range of highly-integrated, lower-cost and multi standard chips combining Toumaz and Frontier technologies, and in network audio, a new Bluetooth connected audio module will address the growing demand in the wireless audio connectivity space.

Toumaz, which develops low cost, ultra-low power wireless technology, said Wednesday that its full year loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (BITDA) has risen on broadly flat revenues. The BITDA loss for the 12-month period will be in the region of £10.9m (2011: £6.1m), with an increase in costs resulting from higher investment in new chip development, one-off costs of acquiring Frontier Silicon and increased marketing spend to stimulate DAB demand in Germany. Full year revenues came in at £22.3m, compared to £24.8m in 2011 (excluding non-recurring revenues in 2011). On a statutory basis revenues for 2012 will be in the region of £8.5m. The company expects its cash levels at the end of the period to be no less than £15.2m.